Speaker 1: Hi, this is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switch
Speaker 1: It on the bienn Of podcast and Happy New Year,
Speaker 1: which I feel is a completely appropriate greeting for the
Speaker 1: first two weeks of January, and when I think about three,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling this is going to be the
Speaker 1: best year yet. On this show, we're going to continue
Speaker 1: with the interviews that I do with Bienny f analyists,
Speaker 1: asking them about their research and what they're learning about
Speaker 1: the energy transition, but we're also going to be baxing
Speaker 1: in even more external interviews where Bienny of analysts speak
Speaker 1: with external guests that are in the industries that we
Speaker 1: cover today. We're going to kick off the new year
Speaker 1: with just that an external guest, the CEO of Shell
Speaker 1: Recharge Solutions Europe, Melanie Lane. On today's show, she'll be
Speaker 1: discussing some of the biggest challenges and of course opportunities
Speaker 1: facing the rollout of electric vehicle charging over the next
Speaker 1: few years. Electrifying transport is a critical way to reduce
Speaker 1: submissions to meet climate goals. So what if anything, is
Speaker 1: holding the industry back, and is there enough renewable energy
Speaker 1: supply to meet demand? And how are consumers and the
Speaker 1: e V industry dealing with range anxiety. Today's interview is
Speaker 1: conducted by Colin mccarricker. He's the head of Advanced Transport
Speaker 1: at bienn e F. Please note that BIENNEF does not
Speaker 1: provide investment or strategy advice, and our full disclaimer is
Speaker 1: at the very end of the show. But now let's
Speaker 1: hear Colin and Melanie's conversation about e V charging. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining everyone. I'm Colin mccarricker and I run the
Speaker 1: Transport Automotive coverage at Bloomberg any F and today I'm
Speaker 1: joined by Melanie Lane. Melanieer, the CEO of Shell Rechards
Speaker 1: Solutions in Europe. Shell Recharge was previously New Motion, which
Speaker 1: was founded over a decade ago in the Netherlands and
Speaker 1: then acquired by Shell in Since then, the company has
Speaker 1: been expanding its presence in the charging market, including acquiring
Speaker 1: green lots in North America. The company's footprint now includes
Speaker 1: access to a roaming network of nearly four thousand locations
Speaker 1: across Europe. You're coming up to three years in the role,
Speaker 1: but you've been at Shell for more than twenty years
Speaker 1: in other parts of the business, including running the UK
Speaker 1: retail business, US the aviation business across Europe and various
Speaker 1: other rules. Welcome to the podcast, Melanie, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Great to be here, Great to have you here. So
Speaker 1: I want to jump in with something that might be
Speaker 1: a difficult question, but we may as well start with
Speaker 1: some difficult things. First, electric mobility is really taking off
Speaker 1: around the world. So we've seen EV sales go from
Speaker 1: a few percent one to three in a lot of market.
Speaker 1: We're expecting them to hit about of global vehicle sales
Speaker 1: this year. That's battery electrics and plug and hybrids combined.
Speaker 1: But that's on this really rapid acceleration trajectory. And I
Speaker 1: guess my question is can charging infrastructure keep hop with
Speaker 1: what's happening or will it be what slows down this
Speaker 1: EV adoption story. I mean, it's such a fascinating question,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Because I often say that we are trying
Speaker 1: to do in this EV space in what less than
Speaker 1: five years, what it took nearly a century to do
Speaker 1: in the world of hydrocarbons. So the effort require to
Speaker 1: achieve the targets sort of being set at a global
Speaker 1: level as well as at a country level, if massive,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what makes is such an exciting
Speaker 1: industry to be a part of. If we think then
Speaker 1: about the infrastructure specifically, there's there are lots of things
Speaker 1: that have to come together in order for those targets
Speaker 1: to to be realized. But if we just think about
Speaker 1: the infrastructure specific gram an ad minute, absolute infrastructure is
Speaker 1: going to have to match the level of growth that
Speaker 1: you just describe. We're talking so the end of all
Speaker 1: goods to see there were more than thirty three thousand
Speaker 1: electric vehicle charging points across the UK, which I mean
Speaker 1: already was thirty percent more than the time the same
Speaker 1: time the year before, and there's a target to have
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand by twenty thirty and then a huge
Speaker 1: amount of investment going into that. The trick is how
Speaker 1: to bring that to life. And I think the experience
Speaker 1: that we're seeing is it's actually really complicated. And it's
Speaker 1: really complicated because you are building out a new ecosystem
Speaker 1: and in order to get that infrastructure up and running.
Speaker 1: It's not jumped to we're going to buy a charger
Speaker 1: and we're going to stick it on this piece of land.
Speaker 1: It's about the connectivity with the grid. It's around the
Speaker 1: organizations that are managing that process, not necessarily being set
Speaker 1: up for the scale of demand, for the amount of
Speaker 1: requests that are coming through, for the work to be
Speaker 1: done that enables the kind of expansion of the fast
Speaker 1: charging network that ecosystem is still really in its infancy. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you've got global supply chain challenges as coming out the
Speaker 1: back of COVID trick shortages, etcetera. You're seeing stressing both
Speaker 1: in the system around the vehicle and supply, but also
Speaker 1: around the supply of the hardware itself, and so secure
Speaker 1: supply chains are super important. And then there's a whole
Speaker 1: piece around the customer experience and how to make that
Speaker 1: customer experience as seamless as possible, because even if you're
Speaker 1: able to overcome your supply chain and your installation and
Speaker 1: your grid upgrade, the customers need to have a seamless
Speaker 1: and easy experience for them. This is a big transition
Speaker 1: to make, and we see a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: anxiety from drivers in making that transition, and so as
Speaker 1: an industry, we need to come together to help them
Speaker 1: do that. So, I think and we can unpack all
Speaker 1: of these I think there's some really big pieces that
Speaker 1: we're going to need to work on across the system
Speaker 1: in order to enable that infrastructure growth to keep up
Speaker 1: with with what's needed to match that those projected number
Speaker 1: of vehicles on the road. Yeah, you touched on this,
Speaker 1: and I think there are a lot of different moving pieces.
Speaker 1: But actually I want to come back to something you
Speaker 1: said right at the beginning of that, which is that
Speaker 1: we spend a hundred years building out the sort of
Speaker 1: hydrocarbon or more than a hundred years build up the
Speaker 1: hydrocarbon supply chain to keep vehicles moving in on the road,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to do something new with electricity in
Speaker 1: a much shorter time frame. Let's stay on that for
Speaker 1: a minute, And how is this transition different than that
Speaker 1: in terms of building up the supply chain for hydrocarbons. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's this timeframe element. We're trying to do it faster
Speaker 1: than we did it in the past. But are there
Speaker 1: other sort of systems level differences that you think about
Speaker 1: when you compare the way it works in a molecule
Speaker 1: based delivering molecules the gasoline or diesel to vehicles versus
Speaker 1: an electrons based world. Is there some systems thinking there
Speaker 1: that is very different to you? And how does that look,
Speaker 1: so I think I mean even when our predecessores would
Speaker 1: have been building a hydrocarbon at the very early days
Speaker 1: of building up that system, yeah, it would have been
Speaker 1: a new system that they were designing. I think what
Speaker 1: we've got now as we transition is a number of things.
Speaker 1: And this is why I think systems thinking is so important.
Speaker 1: You're not just replacing a piece of hardware. You're talking
Speaker 1: about an end to end supply chain for this super
Speaker 1: different and in an ideal world, you're talking about a
Speaker 1: system that can increasingly rely on sustainable power so on
Speaker 1: the go, charging at home, charging on street charging, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And thinking about cloud that end to end system is
Speaker 1: going to flex and manage what is a massive increase
Speaker 1: in demand over the next few years. So you're building
Speaker 1: a new system, but you're also needing to build a
Speaker 1: system at scale and for peak load, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to do that very quickly. So that's kind of about
Speaker 1: the chain that you're establishing. There is other component parts.
Speaker 1: So one is around skills and expertise, and I go
Speaker 1: back to the community may before you've got in each
Speaker 1: different market that we operate in, the grid is set
Speaker 1: up in different ways, so you have different interfaces, different
Speaker 1: entities that if you just talk about like the grid
Speaker 1: as a generic, we're talking about often national or kind
Speaker 1: of institutions that aren't necessarily used to dealing with the
Speaker 1: level of kind of commercial demand from multiple organizations, are
Speaker 1: varying different sizes. It can be from a home all
Speaker 1: the way through to a large complex fleet depot. You
Speaker 1: don't have that capability in built into the system at
Speaker 1: the moment. Likewise, if you look at the space of
Speaker 1: installation and commissioning to get the hardware the equipment in
Speaker 1: the ground, we predict quite a big shortage actually of
Speaker 1: electricians in the short term, particularly the level of qualified
Speaker 1: electricians you need to do this kind of work again
Speaker 1: at this kind of scale. So you've got a capability
Speaker 1: piece to the system that we need to address. You've
Speaker 1: then got a piece around the regulatory environment. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to the end of the last century,
Speaker 1: the regulatory environment, whether you're talking about payment, calibration, quality
Speaker 1: standards and all of those things were really well bedded
Speaker 1: in and they have been built up over years experience
Speaker 1: multiple kind of sources of expertise, and here it's all nascent,
Speaker 1: it's emerging and countries across Europe are taking in some
Speaker 1: cases consistent approaches, in some cases slightly different approaches to
Speaker 1: how they're thinking about this and quality and assurance and compliance,
Speaker 1: and so that is all kind of emerging and evolving
Speaker 1: as we go. Add to them that it's an eCos
Speaker 1: system that depends on hardware, but also it's very technology dependent.
Speaker 1: So you've got the vehicle, you've got the grid, you've
Speaker 1: got your hardware infrastructure, you've got your consumer. So you're
Speaker 1: building out a new kind of software hardware ecosystem. And
Speaker 1: then the last piece, as I said before, is consumer
Speaker 1: behavior and they pay method role in this. So that's
Speaker 1: what I mean by systems thinking. It's not just a
Speaker 1: simple task of Okay, we're going to take out a
Speaker 1: hydrogarbment PARKERM with ever going to put chargery. Actually, you've
Speaker 1: got to think much more broadly about the system if
Speaker 1: you're going to deliver the pace of sale that we're
Speaker 1: talking about. I'll give you an example. We discovered this
Speaker 1: really early on, this whole kind of ecosystem approach, and
Speaker 1: our response to that in Europe has been within each
Speaker 1: of the shell entities that operate in market, they have
Speaker 1: set up what we've called revolution rooms where they bring
Speaker 1: together the necessary counterparties and capabilities too finst try the
Speaker 1: rollout of infrastructure within our own network. And when you
Speaker 1: go to those rooms that they're working in an agile way,
Speaker 1: they have outcomes every two weeks, there's reviews every quarter
Speaker 1: of the deep dives. The amount of people that we
Speaker 1: need to draw into those rooms in order to affect
Speaker 1: change the amount of capabilities, it's huge, and without bringing
Speaker 1: those people together, we wouldn't be affecting the kind of
Speaker 1: change to the kind of pace we are. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean about system thinking and how tall
Speaker 1: it is. That's really important because I think one of
Speaker 1: the things you mentioned there it was around how different
Speaker 1: power markets and grids are, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: the physical infrastructure, but also in terms of the regulatory
Speaker 1: set up. The different lease involved are in different countries.
Speaker 1: Each power system looks quite different than the one in
Speaker 1: a neighboring country. It's quite a bit more different than
Speaker 1: you find in the hydrocarbon supply chain, which maybe looks
Speaker 1: a little bit more similar between countries, and then the
Speaker 1: power system does. So I think that's a really important point,
Speaker 1: is that there are very different groups of people you
Speaker 1: have to have in the room to get stuff done,
Speaker 1: and country because of how varied power markets are and
Speaker 1: electrical grid infrastructure is in each country. And we're going
Speaker 1: to come back to this human resources question because everyone
Speaker 1: thinks of building posts, right, they think of getting enough
Speaker 1: posts in the ground, but maybe they don't think about
Speaker 1: all the pieces behind that, or the right number of
Speaker 1: people you need trained in the right way in order
Speaker 1: to do that, or the permitting requirements in order to
Speaker 1: do that. But we've jumped right into all the challenges.
Speaker 1: I want to actually now back up a bit and
Speaker 1: say where are the brightest spot in the charging business
Speaker 1: right now? Where are you seeing the most success and
Speaker 1: what does that look like? Yeah, and I think there's
Speaker 1: a few things to highlight. So coming into lead, what
Speaker 1: was an emotion now shall recharge solutions? One of the
Speaker 1: things you can't go past is the amount of energy
Speaker 1: and innovation that is in this space right now and
Speaker 1: working in an organization. We have more than six d
Speaker 1: people now just in Europe, and people that are bringing
Speaker 1: their talent to this space are fueled by real purpose
Speaker 1: and passion and when you combine that purpose and passion
Speaker 1: with deep papability and they're kind of the magic you
Speaker 1: can make is too, So I would really want to
Speaker 1: start with just how energizing actually it is to be
Speaker 1: at the center of what is really a generational change.
Speaker 1: And I think lots of people who work in the
Speaker 1: industry are really motivated by that fact. We are past
Speaker 1: that tipping point. This is a sizemic change and resources
Speaker 1: are being put into making that happen. So I think
Speaker 1: for me that is a massive bright spot. I think
Speaker 1: linked to that piece on of the tipping point. I
Speaker 1: think that big organization, so your FedEx, is your dhls,
Speaker 1: your Amazon's, really are fundamental to making that energy transition happen.
Speaker 1: The total cost of ownership has shifted for them, and
Speaker 1: you see a lot of feeling in a collaboration and
Speaker 1: thinking through again, how are we going to design their
Speaker 1: ecosystem so that they can transition effectively and quick And
Speaker 1: so when you've got organizations of that scale alongside big
Speaker 1: pieces of infrastructure so airports, our own networks, you start
Speaker 1: to see that real momentum this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: The big players really committed and really working through some
Speaker 1: quite complex solutions to make this happen. And I think
Speaker 1: that the term piece, I would say that it's bright spot.
Speaker 1: We had people from the UK depart for Transport as
Speaker 1: well as Amsterdam City here in our office this week.
Speaker 1: We have an innovation lab and experience center that we
Speaker 1: call it, and they came and spent time just really
Speaker 1: listening and learning about what are the differences that we
Speaker 1: experienced across different markets, what are the challenges with different
Speaker 1: hardware requirements, policy regulation. There is a real desire, I
Speaker 1: think or eye experience to learn and and collaborate, and
Speaker 1: I think that's brilliant. So I think actually there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bright spots across the landscape, and I think
Speaker 1: we should be super positive. It's not an oth question
Speaker 1: and it's just when and how fast really, so I'm
Speaker 1: quite encouraged now for a very short break stay with us.
Speaker 1: You certainly meet a lot of people who tried any
Speaker 1: vy one five years ago and then decided to change
Speaker 1: their whole career around because they could see it was
Speaker 1: a revolution in the way people were going to get
Speaker 1: around and it changed their You talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have changed their whole career trajectory going
Speaker 1: for a test ride in or something, and I always
Speaker 1: find that fascinating in the emobility community. This this real
Speaker 1: passion for the work that people are doing. You touched
Speaker 1: on fleet there and some of the big operators. Can
Speaker 1: you comment a bit about what you're seeing on that
Speaker 1: sort of business to business or fleet market on the
Speaker 1: charging front. Yeah, absolutely, I mean more and more we
Speaker 1: are seeing large fleet owners asking for support and guidance. Again,
Speaker 1: I can't say they word enough is collaboration. The large
Speaker 1: fleet market need partners who can provide that kind of
Speaker 1: three sixty whole ecosystem solution that they're looking for, because
Speaker 1: most of those organizations need solution and across multiple parts
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem. They need to be able to support
Speaker 1: their charging hubs with both the infrastructure that they need,
Speaker 1: the connectivity with a grid, that monitoring and operational support
Speaker 1: to keep that infrastructure optimizing. This is the core of
Speaker 1: how they make their money, so that infrastructure absolutely has
Speaker 1: to work and give them the kind of quality outcomes
Speaker 1: they need. But they also in many cases are looking
Speaker 1: for border solutions. So what about sustainable power, what about
Speaker 1: other kind of decolbonization solutions that we can support them
Speaker 1: within other parts of their business. So this kind of
Speaker 1: three sixty total approach. They're looking for, how do their
Speaker 1: drivers charge when they're out on the road. They're looking
Speaker 1: for or maybe my drivers need charges in the home
Speaker 1: environment as well. So they're looking for partners who can
Speaker 1: help them solutionize across all of those different pieces, and
Speaker 1: a job really is to make all of that as
Speaker 1: simple as possible, and over time there will be all
Speaker 1: sorts of different innovations that you start to add to that,
Speaker 1: especially around optimizing power, thinking of about how we manage
Speaker 1: the demand on the grid, thinking about battery storage, solar,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That ecosystem will continue to build out and grow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're definitely seeing a lot more activity on the commercial
Speaker 1: vehicle front, just in terms of sales, a lot of
Speaker 1: it mostly in the smaller vehicles of vans, and we're
Speaker 1: actually starting to see more of the big truck makers
Speaker 1: launching electric models, whether that's Volvo or Daimler or Tesla
Speaker 1: planning to bring it semi to market. Do you see
Speaker 1: the solutions that Shell offers ending up going all the
Speaker 1: way out to like the heaviest vehicles doing really fast
Speaker 1: charging the longer route. Yeah, I'm to your point. We've
Speaker 1: actually been working with some of the brands you just
Speaker 1: mentioned with some of their vehicles actually in our knabs
Speaker 1: looking at how do you provide the infrastructure for that
Speaker 1: profile of a vehicle, we can see that do the
Speaker 1: same thing that's really picking up. Yeah, there's something else
Speaker 1: we've been noting in the market, and when we look
Speaker 1: at a lot of the public charging networks for pass charging,
Speaker 1: we're noticing that a lot of the prices are rising,
Speaker 1: and in some cases quite dramatically. We did some analysis
Speaker 1: just recently showing that in a lot of cases you're
Speaker 1: depending on the network and the country, it varies a
Speaker 1: fair bit, but in Europe you're often getting fast public
Speaker 1: fast charging, ending up being pretty similar in terms of
Speaker 1: cost per kilometer cost per mile driven to refueling with
Speaker 1: gasoline or petrol or diesel as well. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people still might do nine or more of their
Speaker 1: charging at home and very occasionally used those public chargers.
Speaker 1: But I guess the question I want to ask is
Speaker 1: the fact that some public charging prices are rising up
Speaker 1: to the point where they're comparable with petrol or diesel
Speaker 1: on a per kilometer driven basis. Is that a problem
Speaker 1: for the market? And I guess do you think that
Speaker 1: comes back down, does its slow adoption just anything you
Speaker 1: can comment on some of those rising prices and the
Speaker 1: dynamics it might cause. Obviously, there's a lot of volatility
Speaker 1: in the world that impact the prices throughout the system,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't want to comment specifically on pricing or
Speaker 1: forecast or anything else. But if we just think about behavior,
Speaker 1: what we see and are quite confident with is that
Speaker 1: a VIA option is going to continue to grow. So
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to making a switch to
Speaker 1: whether that is at a company level or whether it's
Speaker 1: an individual level, that total cost of ownership is super important,
Speaker 1: whether you're a driver or whether you're an organization. And
Speaker 1: so clearly the fact that there is a lot of
Speaker 1: volatility in the world at the moment is something that
Speaker 1: brings into sharp focus that total cost of ownership. That said,
Speaker 1: we feel very confident that the overall trajectory of EAVY
Speaker 1: adoption is set. Will you have maybe some ups and
Speaker 1: downs or maybe a slight slow down because of a
Speaker 1: variety of factors, partly volatinity, but also for example we
Speaker 1: talked before about supply chain stability, maybe, but the overall trajectory,
Speaker 1: we think it is kind of set and that adoption
Speaker 1: is going to continue at a fast pace moving into
Speaker 1: the future. It seems like so many things that are
Speaker 1: driving up electricity costs, some of the same things are
Speaker 1: also driving up cost of gasline and needle or pushing
Speaker 1: more energy security concerns were living for a very complex time,
Speaker 1: and I agree it's very hard to predict what happens next,
Speaker 1: but certainly we agree with you at then f that
Speaker 1: the die is a bit cast in terms of the adoption,
Speaker 1: though there are going to be some bumps in the
Speaker 1: road on different things. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about this grid connection issue that you start to hear
Speaker 1: more about in charging infrastructure. Can you get enough grid
Speaker 1: connection capacity, can you get it done fast enough? Can
Speaker 1: you get them in the right places where you want
Speaker 1: to put chargers? Just anything you can comment on that
Speaker 1: side of the equation of getting all these things hooked
Speaker 1: up to the grid. So I think again a difference
Speaker 1: by market. So certainly, if you look across your the
Speaker 1: processes the different government ecocistants have in place vary. If
Speaker 1: you look at the Netherlands, the penetration of on street
Speaker 1: charging is far ahead of many other markets. For example,
Speaker 1: there are indeed differences in the maturity of different countries
Speaker 1: different cities in getting the infrastructure set up and run,
Speaker 1: particularly in the public domain. And I think if you
Speaker 1: look at the Netherlands, for example, the penetration of on
Speaker 1: street parking is far in excess of many other countries
Speaker 1: or or the UK, and so there are differences. But
Speaker 1: as a general rule, as you see the level of
Speaker 1: demand growing, whether that is from the pieces of infrastructure
Speaker 1: so like depot hubs for example, or whether it's on
Speaker 1: street or whether it's even individual homes and communities, all
Speaker 1: of that needs to be channel through a set of
Speaker 1: let's call it grid operators to be just generical use
Speaker 1: of terminology across Europe, and we need to make sure
Speaker 1: that the permitcing process is the resourcing and the requirements
Speaker 1: are made as simple as possible. So I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. If you're trying to provide sufficient level of
Speaker 1: power to a highway site, for example, because you need
Speaker 1: to put in a number of false charges, you need
Speaker 1: a greater amount of powered pacity going into that site.
Speaker 1: In order to get that set up. You might have
Speaker 1: a ten monthly time in order to get the approvals
Speaker 1: needed both from the commercial entity that's investing in the hardware,
Speaker 1: the landlord that owns the property the hardware being installed on,
Speaker 1: as well as the permit providers on the grid side.
Speaker 1: That can take months, literally months, And so if you
Speaker 1: extrapolate that from kind of one site across multiple networks,
Speaker 1: across multiple markets, we need a significant shift in resourcing
Speaker 1: and ways of working and how we think about the
Speaker 1: system to get that infrastructure not just in place, put
Speaker 1: up and running. We're going to need some changes there.
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the issues that seems
Speaker 1: to be coming up in multiple places. And I guess
Speaker 1: the thing I'm always wondering about is do the costs
Speaker 1: go up as we add more and more charging points
Speaker 1: or do they go down? Most things, as we do
Speaker 1: more of them, the costs go down. But getting a
Speaker 1: grid capacity, maybe some of the easy spots get tapped
Speaker 1: out and then you get the harder spots. Is there
Speaker 1: any trend you can comment on there? Are the cost
Speaker 1: of getting new sites connected, permitted connected to the grid,
Speaker 1: Is that going up or down or staying the same,
Speaker 1: or any dynamics you can comment on there. So I
Speaker 1: think there's a few things packed into that. If you
Speaker 1: take a part the different pieces got hardware, which is
Speaker 1: a piece hardware over time will undoubtedly become more commoditized.
Speaker 1: There will be more suppliers. Understanding of how to produce
Speaker 1: high quality, consistent hardware will increase as experience increases, so
Speaker 1: you know, over time hardware will likely become more cost competitive.
Speaker 1: We talked before about label installation, capability and color, level
Speaker 1: of engineering resources that you need to facilitate this level
Speaker 1: of change. That's going to be another driver of cost,
Speaker 1: and that will again be about supplied month, right, So
Speaker 1: do we have sufficient capacity in order to do all
Speaker 1: the work that's required or is that a bottle neck.
Speaker 1: There's a bottle neck across the industry, then that will
Speaker 1: also be a factor. Certainly at a general level, these
Speaker 1: are big investments sort of being made and will take
Speaker 1: multiple years to pay back, and so I think both
Speaker 1: governments and private organization already trying to think differently about
Speaker 1: those investment cases and how to make the case for
Speaker 1: that early investment, recognizing that it's going to take some
Speaker 1: time to fully pay back. And I think, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I was talking before about. We need to think
Speaker 1: creatively about the business models about how we work together
Speaker 1: in that ecosystem. To make sure there are the right
Speaker 1: incentives to go as fast as possible. Yeah, And are
Speaker 1: there any big policy levers you're watching that you think
Speaker 1: might accelerate that, or whether that's in the UK or
Speaker 1: in the rest of Europe, is there any thing on
Speaker 1: the policy front you're watching carefully now? Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: few pieces I think regulations around smart charging and so
Speaker 1: the ability so as you roll out that ecosystem, whether
Speaker 1: it's a business ago or at home, the ability for
Speaker 1: smart charging to help manage that demand on the grid
Speaker 1: is an increasing area of policy focused. There will likely
Speaker 1: be more requirements on the public charge points, specifically aimed
Speaker 1: at kind of ease of use, contact less payment, consistent
Speaker 1: protocols across the network. That's a sign of a maturing industry.
Speaker 1: And obviously there's a lot of discussion around the relationship
Speaker 1: between the consumer the car, which is a piece of
Speaker 1: technology in its own right, and the charging infrastructure and
Speaker 1: how data is moved and owned and shared between those entities.
Speaker 1: So that's another area of interest and focus with policymakers.
Speaker 1: And then I think lastly there's a piece around just consistency,
Speaker 1: and when I say consistency around both consumer and also quality.
Speaker 1: So again you've got a big growth market, lots of
Speaker 1: new suppliers trying to meet consuming e It's in slightly
Speaker 1: different ways, and the necessarily there will need to be
Speaker 1: some standardization around what good looks like, what quality and
Speaker 1: what standards would we expect across that networks. So I
Speaker 1: think there are some specific areas of policy that we
Speaker 1: look at and we would expect to continue to evolve
Speaker 1: into a probability would be the other obvious one across
Speaker 1: networks and across countries. That's really helpful sort of smart
Speaker 1: charging either use and then a relationship between the car,
Speaker 1: the consumer and the charging infrastructure and the flow of data,
Speaker 1: and also that sort of consistency and quality perspective across
Speaker 1: all of it at all of the areas you're watching
Speaker 1: on the policy front. Now for a very short break,
Speaker 1: stay with us. If you had one request to policymakers
Speaker 1: or to other stakeholders in the charging infrastructure or emobility business,
Speaker 1: what would that request be. I think the request would
Speaker 1: be twofold, would be collaboration and working with us within
Speaker 1: the right time frames to deliver the vision that I
Speaker 1: think we're all as firing to deliver. I think there
Speaker 1: is there are real pockets of expertise and knowledge across
Speaker 1: the industry, but it is still nascent, and to build
Speaker 1: out the right policy frameworks is going to take really
Speaker 1: listening and learning from those pockets of expertise to make
Speaker 1: sure that the policy frameworks that developed are robust and
Speaker 1: are sustainable for the long term and don't inadvertently create
Speaker 1: barriers to scale into growth. I think that's really helpful,
Speaker 1: and that's certainly a common thread across what you've been saying,
Speaker 1: is that they need to get everyone together to to
Speaker 1: ensure you're doing things both effectively and efficiently given the
Speaker 1: time frames that we're trying to do this transition on.
Speaker 1: I have one last question. Well, we talked on it
Speaker 1: earlier about the kind of passion and drive that is
Speaker 1: common amongst the community of people working around themobility. Do
Speaker 1: you have any reflections on that coming from other parts
Speaker 1: of Shell. Is there something Shall Recharge can learn from
Speaker 1: the rest of the broader Shell business and vice versa.
Speaker 1: Is there something that the broader Shell business can learn
Speaker 1: from Shell Recharge. This is one of the most motivating
Speaker 1: parts of what I do, and I have such a
Speaker 1: strong belief in the power of the big and the
Speaker 1: small coming together and being able to leverage respective strengths.
Speaker 1: I think when you're looking at what Shell has deep
Speaker 1: experience and expertise in you're talking about brand, you're talking
Speaker 1: about deep supply chain expertise, delivery, deep relationships with customers
Speaker 1: all across the world backed by real customer insight, strong
Speaker 1: relationships with regulators, and the ability to drive change and
Speaker 1: transformation in complex systems at scale. But that's what Shell
Speaker 1: has grown up doing over the last hundred years, and
Speaker 1: that is what this industry needs. At the same time,
Speaker 1: have acquired a number of smaller entities. We're one of them,
Speaker 1: and they bring a lot of kind of purpose driven
Speaker 1: these as So people have joined these companies for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's not for a job. It's because they believe, even
Speaker 1: an outcome, they believe in the purpose and I think
Speaker 1: that kind of energy is super motivating. I think we
Speaker 1: are bringing tech product capabilities and agile ways of working
Speaker 1: that have been far easier to instill in a small
Speaker 1: organization where you're working on a kind of daily, weekly,
Speaker 1: bi weekly sprint basis to deliver outcomes much faster, then
Speaker 1: sometimes it's possible. Right, it's a large, big, corporate enterprise,
Speaker 1: and so if you can marry those two things together
Speaker 1: at I think it's a super powerful combination and it's
Speaker 1: one of the things that is probably the most exciting
Speaker 1: about the role that I do at the moment. That
Speaker 1: is really exciting now. And definitely the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to move at the gale with the support of
Speaker 1: a big organization behind you while still maintaining some of
Speaker 1: that dynamism is certainly a big part of what needed
Speaker 1: to get things from going accelerating as they need to do.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mal, It's been great to speak
Speaker 1: to you today. Thanks so much for coming on the
Speaker 1: program and talking to us about the outlook for charging
Speaker 1: infrastructure and you're roll within it and what you're happening
Speaker 1: in the next few years. Thank you, Thank you. Today's
Speaker 1: episode of Switched On was edited by Rex Warner of
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