#95 - New Year Special!

Published on 01 January 2025

Share to

Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Episode notes

Join the whole EV Café crew as we ring in the New Year with a look forward to 2025!

More episodes

#183 - Kevin Hennelly | TVG#183 - Kevin Hennelly | TVG

Published 09 Sep 2026

What happens when you take an electric van that can wheelspin off the line and make it drive like the diesel it replaced? According to Kevin Hennelly, commercial director at The Vehicle Group (TVG), you get calmer drivers, fewer accidents, longer tyre life - and up to 30% more range from the same battery. Kevin lifts the lid on TVG, a "very well hidden" UK engineering company whose Aladdin's cave of products includes the Oculus camera (the only vehicle camera made in the UK) and EcoLimit, a power control system that tames EV acceleration, limits reverse speed, and can even put an overloaded van into limp mode until it's back at the depot. He talks through the real-world numbers: a refrigerated home-delivery fleet in London seeing 120–130 miles where unmodified vans manage 90, a water company getting over 200 miles per charge instead of the expected 150–160, and the knock-on savings in charging time, infrastructure, tyres, downtime, and insurance claims. **Connect with Kevin:** [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-hennelly-4b4a7929/) **The Vehicle Group:** [thevehiclegroup.com](https://thevehiclegroup.com)

#182 - Chris Chandler | Lex Autolease#182 - Chris Chandler | Lex Autolease

Published 02 Sep 2026

Chris Chandler is Principal Consultant at Lex Autolease and the electrification SME across all three Lloyds Banking Group motor brands: Lex Autolease on the B2B side, Tusker in salary sacrifice (22,000 vehicles at acquisition, 100,000 the week we recorded), and Black Horse in retail finance. Between leasing and salary sacrifice, that's a serious chunk of the EVs on British roads. Paul and JC get into: - Why cars sprinted and vans crawled - benefit-in-kind versus a purely transactional purchase, and why commercial vehicles are far less price elastic than company cars - The moment the tax went up and "the tap just turned off" - then came back down and switched on again - Why converted diesel platforms were never going to cut it, and what changes when a van is engineered electric from the ground up - Charging that should just work: plug in, it charges, no apps, no cards, no accounts - V2G, home solar and batteries, and why a leasing company is now asking customers what's behind the wall socket - Designing CO2-based company car tax in 1999, and why CO2 beat the other 18 candidates on the list - Biodiesel, waxing fuel, bacterial growth, and the argument for a 5% blend across everything rather than 67% in a handful of refuse trucks **Chris Chandler on LinkedIn:** <https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-chandler-756b9813/> **Lex Autolease:** <https://www.lexautolease.co.uk> Lex are principal sponsors of the Greenfleet EV Rally.

#181 - Angela Muresan | Be.EV#181 - Angela Muresan | Be.EV

Published 26 Aug 2026

Angela Muresan arrived in the UK in 2015 with broken English and a job picking and packing in a warehouse. Ten years later she's a presenter, content creator, and the face of Be.EV — and the story of how she got there involves a notebook full of borrowed email templates, a self-funded industry event that left her with £20 in the bank, and a one-way ticket taken purely because an ex once said the UK was the one place he'd never go. Angela talks about ADHD — what it cost her before she understood it, why she now calls it a superpower, and how an unlikely combination of therapy and ChatGPT helped her make sense of her own brain. She explains the gamble behind Race to Zero, the event she organised alone with no marketing experience specifically so the industry would come to her (it worked), and why her proudest achievement has nothing to do with work. Along the way: why she refuses to be boxed in as "an EV person" or "a petrol person", the sameness problem with modern car design, her plan to convert a classic — ideally a '69 Shelby Mustang — to electric, and what she'd do with a EuroMillions win. And when handed the EV Café magic wand, her one wish isn't about chargers or range. It's about ending the tribalism — petrol versus electric, us versus them — and just getting on with building a cleaner future together. ## Connect with Angela: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketingwithangela/ - Website: https://www.angelamuresan.com - Be.EV: https://www.be-ev.co.uk

#180 - Warren Philips | EVA England#180 - Warren Philips | EVA England

Published 19 Aug 2026

A co-founder of EVA England, incoming chair of the Recharge APPG in Parliament, and one of the earliest UK adopters of home solar, battery storage and electric driving — Warren Phlips received one of the very first consumer Tesla Powerwall 2 units in the country (number three, he's told, just behind a certain Robert Llewellyn) — he has spent the best part of a decade quietly pulling the EV transition in the right direction, almost entirely as a volunteer. But this conversation goes far beyond charge points and policy. Warren talks candidly about the moment that changed everything: sitting alone in a hospital room, holding his newborn daughter while doctors fought to save his wife, and deciding then and there that his job was to make the world better rather than build a fortress around his family. Everything since — the advocacy, the lobbying, the 20-plus hours a week given freely to EVA England — flows from that decision, and from a promise his daughter. Along the way: - From avionics engineering and FTSE 100 software to government security work — and how none of it explains the hats - How showing off a Renault Zoe and some solar panels at an eco open home quietly converted a neighbourhood - The five principles Warren tests every policy against: fair, accessible, equitable, safe, accurate - A live debate on the newly announced VAT cut on domestic electricity — good news, but is it fair to the millions who can't charge at home? - Recognising privilege, and choosing to spend it on other people - Lucid Destiny, his new consultancy helping companies navigate the EV transition without losing sight of the consumer at the end of it - Why his daughter is named after Ayrton Senna - And a Magic Wand wish that might be the best one yet: removing fear itself **Connect with Warren:**[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/warrenphilips/) **EVA England:**[evaengland.org.uk](https://www.evaengland.org.uk)