Battery chemist and founder of Plug Life Television, Dr. Euan McTurk, uncovers the facts behind EV batteries, from ethical sourcing and recycling to cutting-edge technology that’s driving down costs and boosting range. Discover why EV fires are rare, how new charging methods can extend battery life, and what the latest advancements mean for the future of small, powerful, and sustainable cars.

Dr Euan McTurk is a Consultant Battery Electrochemist who has been working on - and driving - electric vehicles since 2009. Having worked on next-generation cell chemistries during his PhD at the University of Oxford, developed ways to study how electric vehicle cells fail and how to stop them failing (at WMG*, University of Warwick) and built up a state-of-the-art 200 kW battery test facility in Edinburgh, Euan founded Plug Life Consulting, which provides technical, strategic and public outreach services to projects involving battery electrochemistry, electric vehicles, energy storage systems and charging infrastructure. Euan is also the creator of Plug Life Television, a YouTube channel on batteries and EVs that explains complex electrochemistry in a way that anyone can understand and busts common myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles.

*Warwick Manufacturing Group

LinkedIn: Euan McTurk

www.pluglifetelevision.co.uk

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm.

Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis.

You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com

Enjoy,

About the episode: EV industry pioneer Sam Clarke, a record-holding entrepreneur with over two decades in electric mobility shares his journey from importing electric motorbikes in the early 2000s to founding a zero-emissions logistics company and advising on national EV infrastructure. We discuss debunking myths around electric vehicles and explore how the concept of 'grazing' can reset our expectations of electric vehicle charging. Guest Name: Sam Clarke Sam Clarke is a life-long entrepreneur, industry advisor, EV owner/driver for over 20 years and a multiple Guinness World Record Holder for EV driving. His EV journey started back in 2002 with electric motorbikes before founding a zero-emission logistics firm (Gnewt) which he sold to John Menzies Plc in 2017. He now works on national charging infrastructure needs for GRIDSERVE in particular leading on the £100M+ Government funded (ZEHID) eHGV Electric Freightway Project. He is also a founding member of The EV Café webinar and news channel. In 2015, Sam was a Great British Entrepreneur’s Award winner. By 2022 he was made a GreenFleet EV Champion for services to the industry and in 2024 he was voted #1 in the Motor Transport Power Players 2 list and #14 in the greenfleet.net 1 top 100 most Influential list. He also holds two Guinness World Records for the longest distances ever driven in an electric car and van on a single charge 7 (569 and 311 miles respectively). In 2009 he founded the all-electric last-mile logistics business Gnewt which subsequently won multiple awards nationally and globally and was acquired by John Menzies Plc in 2017. During his tenure, he created the UK’s largest fully electric commercial fleet, the largest privately-owned smart charging infrastructure and UK’s most advanced private V2G (Vehicle to Grid) network. With Sam at the helm, the business was able to deliver over 10 million parcels in its first 10 years of trading 3, mainly in Central London, courtesy of a trail-blazing fully zero-emission fleet, the first of its kind anywhere in the UK. Most recently, Sam has extended his role from Board advisor at GRIDSERVE to become their Chief Vehicle Officer 4. His role is to drive forward mass uptake of electric vehicles through the creation of a net-zero EV leasing division, commercial charging infrastructure build-outs and support the nationwide roll out of high-powered Electric Forecourts and upgrade of the GRIDSERVE Electric Highway network that resides on 85% of the service stations nationally. In 2023 he led the successful bid for a £100M+ Innovate UK Government fund (ZEHID 6) whose purpose is to roll out eHGV charging infrastructure nationwide, the second largest award ever issued by Innovate UK to private enterprise. Sam is a high-profile member of the EV community, a regular public speaker for the industry and has previously been invited to speak at the Transport Select Committee in Westminster and at the European Commission in Brussels. He is also a founding member and Company Director/Shareholder of The EV Café Ltd 5. which is a popular webinar series discussing all aspects of EV adoption on regular weekly and monthly sessions. The EV Café has a number of high-profile sectoral sponsors including companies such as, but not limited to, The AA, Europcar, Bridgestone and Webfleet. Links: LinkedIn: Sam Clarke www.gridserve.com I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions, please write to me at: toby@wickedproblems.fm. About Adaptavis Adaptavis is a Business Performance Management and Transformation consultancy aimed at forward-thinking leaders, based in London UK. The company specialises in helping organisations to enhance operational efficiency, drive business growth, and navigate complex transformations. From strategy to execution, they focus on providing insights and practical solutions to improve the overall performance of businesses, ensuring they can adapt to changing market conditions and achieve sustainable success. Toby Corballis is a Partner at Adaptavis. You can find out more about their work by visiting: www.adaptavis.com Enjoy, Toby Corballis

Jordan Brompton of myenergi explores the evolving challenges and opportunities in the electric vehicle industry, focusing on sustainability, resilience, and how she's preparing for a potential zombie uprising! Myenergi is a provider of Home EV chargers, solar PV systems, and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) - or, as Jordan says, Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS). Jordan talks about her journey to setting up one of the most successful HEMS companies in the UK (with cofounder Lee Sutton) and shares insights about the industry, with a couple of EV myths busted into the deal. Join us as we discuss how companies are navigating economic hurdles and accelerating the journey toward a net-zero future.

Business leader, tech entrepreneur and sustainable investor, Jordan Brompton is the co-founder and CMO of myenergi – a global leader in eco-smart home energy technology. Alongside forging fundamental business relationships, Jordan is responsible for driving the day-to-day corporate strategy and fuelling long-term international expansion.

With the ambition of leaving the planet in a better place than she found it, Jordan has been presented with a number of prestigious awards and accolades for her pioneering work. Alongside being crowned Great British Entrepreneur of the Year, she was named in the TE100, the Stonehage Fleming XV, the Top 10 Women in Energy and took home gold as EY Entrepreneur of the Year (North).

Never one to sit still, she became a published author with her debut book ‘Sparki and the journey to Earth’, which aims to educate children about the importance of working towards a greener future.

LinkedIn: Jordan Brompton

www.myenergi.com

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

How can businesses share data to enable them to collaborate effectively whilst still retaining control of their data? Ali Nicholl at IOTICS thinks his company has the answer.

Ali Nicholl is part of IOTICS’ founding team and IOTICS’ Head of Engagement, working across transport, logistics, utilities, the built environment, and defence, focusing on interoperability of IT & OT and digital cooperation across enterprise boundaries. Deploying decentralised, federated approaches that leverage semantics, selective sharing of data and connected digital twins. Ali is actively working on projects supporting the co-creation of transformative services and solutions at the intersection of market sectors and industries – with an interest in ESG, sustainability, and essential sharing networks.

Ali also represents IOTICS within industry and academic initiatives such as TechUK’s Digital Twin Working Group, Cranfield University’s Industry Advisory Board and, as Co-Chair, on the DT Hub Community Council. Ali is passionate about enabling and empowering individuals and organisations to use trusted interoperability to unlock the value of their data assets to meet today’s business challenges, with the future flexibility to be ready for as-yet-undefined technology and needs.

The opportunities presented by enabling programmatic discovery, data sharing and interaction must be married with a holistic understanding to unify technical and business benefits. Ali’s skills lie in taking a view across technical and sector landscapes to give confidence to those taking their first steps and to reflect impacts for the greater good.

LinkedIn: Ali Nicholl

IOTICS.com

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US called last year the hottest on record “by far”. During the year we saw many climate-related catastrophes – from large scale fires to unprecedented flooding. And yet, for some, the science of climate change is controversial. Many claim that even climate scientists don’t believe it can be attributed to anthropogenic actions. To understand what climate scientists really believe, we thought we’d speak with one.

Professor Russchenberg leads the Climate Institute at the Technical University of Delft and is the scientific director of the national Ruisdael Observatory, both in the Netherlands, an apt choice given that roughly one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level (the lowest being 6.7 metres below) and, so, rising sea levels are an issue.

In this episode, Professor Russchenberg and Toby Corballis discuss what businesses can do, the role of technology in mitigating some of the worst effects, why we’re seeing recent events, the warming of the oceans, and where we’re headed. Importantly, we ask what role business can play in helping to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change.

With decades of industry experience, Andrew Gordon-Brooks has built his career across Telco, Finance & Media with both global enterprises and early stage startups. Holding a variety of leadership & executive level positions; including building a global engineering team for a LinkedIn top 25 startup, Andrew is currently Chief Operations Officer for Secure Delivery, a firm spec, a founder member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project.

Professor Russchenberg is a full professor in Atmospheric Remote Sensing and head of the Department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing at the Technical University, Delft, in the Netherlands. Since 202, he is the TU Delft vice rector magnificus for climate action.

As well as leading the TU Delft Climate Institute, he is the Scientific Director of the national Ruisdael Observatory.

His research themes are:

• Climate change: the role of clouds, rainfall and aerosols in the climate system
• Measuring the atmosphere
• Climate engineering
• Nowcasting rainfall

Find out about the work that Professor Russchenberg is doing:

• https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ceg/about-faculty/departments/geoscience-remote-sensing
• https://ruisdael-observatory.nl/

Calculate your travel footprint using one of the following:

• https://www.goclimate.com/travel-calculator
• https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
• https://greentripper.org/

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

As we increasingly connect our devices and our lives to the online world, product security and quality become ever more important. In this episode Toby is joined by Andrew Gordon-Brooks, COO of Secure Delivery, a firm specialising in providing security improvement programmes for software engineers, product managers and leadership. Andrew is also a founding member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project, whose goal is to produce a standard Application Security curriculum across academia and industry.

With decades of industry experience, Andrew Gordon-Brooks has built his career across Telco, Finance & Media with both global enterprises and early stage startups. Holding a variety of leadership & executive level positions; including building a global engineering team for a LinkedIn top 25 startup, Andrew is currently Chief Operations Officer for Secure Delivery, a firm spec, a founder member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project.

https://securedelivery.io
https://owasp.org
https://productqualitymatters.com/

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: tc@wickedproblems.fm.

Enjoy,

Toby

Toby explains how the podcast will change in the coming months to focus more on business. The past few years have seen more than their fair share of challenges for the business environment. An enormous number of businesses are feeling the squeeze and, as a result, looking for ways to increase capacity, capability, and production. At Wicked Problems, we’ve been helping businesses to do exactly that for years, so we thought it would be good to create a series that helps you solve those problems. We hope you enjoy the new format and look forward to seeing you on the first of the new episodes in a couple of weeks’ time.