In this podcast, our CEO Stephen Mabbs, talks with Greg McGarvie, founder and Managing Director of ACE EV, an electric vehicle manufacturer. In this fascinating conversation, Greg outlines the vision of ACE EV to manufacture Australia’s first and most affordable electric vehicles, which will: Disrupt the market in terms of how we think about and use trucks and cars Be a ‘battery on wheels’, able to transport passengers but also act as back up power in emergencies and on construction sites Help the world to reduce carbon emissions and combat the effects of global warming About our guest, Greg McGarvie Greg McGarvie is a visionary and maverick, supported by sound scientific thinking. He started his career as a dairy farmer in Victoria’ south west and it was a love of spear fishing that inspired him to study Marine Biology, which took him to Queensland. Greg spearheaded the Clean Up Australia campaign and has built a career, working to protect our natural environment, and in particular the ocean, which he describes as the world’s lifeblood. His latest venture is manufacturing Australia’s first electric vehicle. Interview Transcript Steve Mabbs: [00:00:04] G’day and welcome back to our podcast series on leadership. My name is Steve Mabbs and I’m the CEO of business and digital consultancy, Escient. In this series, we talk with Australian business and community leaders to learn more about them and try to understand what makes them effective in their roles. Steve Mabbs: [00:00:21] Today, I’m joined by Greg McGarvie, Founder and Managing Director of ACE EV, an electric vehicle manufacturer. In this podcast, Greg explains how a marine biologist, an engineer and a mechanic got together to start a company to design and build electric vehicles in Australia. What inspired them? How did they start? What challenges did they face? And how did they overcome them? Steve Mabbs: [00:00:46] Welcome, Greg McGarvie to our podcast series on leadership. Greg McGarvie: [00:00:50] Thanks, Stephen. Pleasure to be here. Steve Mabbs: [00:00:52] Fantastic. Can we begin by just telling us a bit about ACE EV and how it started? Greg McGarvie: [00:01:01] It’s an interesting start – over five years ago now. And we were developing a solar farm and talking to one of the developers interested in electric vehicles. I said, Greg, I’ll see if I can introduce you to be very useful. And he introduced us then to Charles Kan who is Taiwanese, he’s nuclear engineer, but he’s got a heck of a pedigree behind him. He was chief engineer for high speed rail that runs the length of Taiwan, also a senior manager in one of the leading auto industries in Taiwan. They manufacture components for Toyota as well. As we dug deeper, we found that his partner, Gerhardt Kerr out of Germany is also is modest. He calls himself a mechanic, but he’s a little bit better than the mechanic. Greg McGarvie: [00:01:47] 2000 was one of the points in his life where he worked with Earnest Tomka on the smart car, which everyone knows about. The smart car is probably one of the first small vehicles around that looked at efficiency. And I said he’s got that genetics behind him. He is also involved in Benge with the fiber reinforced plastic division setting that up. And we’re sort of a little bit lucky, Stephen, between those two people, we’ve got some very advanced thinking and technology. And at the moment, I mean, others will be catching up and some it doing similar things, we have 100% composite production technology and the advantage of composite technology and BMW and the others are recognizing this and they’re doing it themselves with some of their vehicles. Big advantages that the time between design and prototype on the road. Plus, just the manufacturing process where you can within 24 months have a concept, prototyped, ready for production. And in the in the vehicle industry, use those lead times of six to eight years, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Steve Mabbs: [00:03:04] I also read somewhere to it’s not only that, not only obviously lighter and and more cost effective to power, but I think I read that they take a third of the energy to actually build the vehicle as well. Greg McGarvie: [00:03:16] It’s true. And no water. So in our factory we’re setting up we’ll have a zero carbon footprint. It’ll be sheeted out with solar panels and storage and so on. And if we do over on energy, we will buy green energy of the solar farm. Our focus is cradle to grave green as possible. We’ve got research relationships now with the University of New South Wales, University of Queensland and Flinders University. And the projects we’re developing with them are all focused on energy efficiency and green technology. Steve Mabbs: [00:03:51] So when you met these gentlemen five years ago, were you actually looking to build an electric car or did circumstances just come together that presented you with the opportunity? You thought this is something I was meant to do? Greg McGarvie: [00:04:04] I never thought that – I’m a marine biologist! So, you know, building vehicles didn’t really look like that was involved in my career option. But I’ve always been involved in setting up environmental type organisations. And and really, this is an environmental organisation, because changing the way we work with our environment through transport. And the big advantage of our vehicle is it doesn’t steal oxygen, doesn’t reflect oxygen with toxic exhaust fumes, very inexpensive to run. And the manufacturing process, as you said, 1/3 the energy and no, no, no water required other than the workers washing their hands and having a drink. Steve Mabbs: [00:04:47] So you’ve spent from looking at your background, you’ve spent your whole career working in the renewables sector or trying to achieve a low carbon footprint in whatever you’ve done pretty much since you started working. You’re probably one of the early pioneers of the industry, really. Is that something you fell into or what drove you to sort of spend your life doing that? Greg McGarvie: [00:05:13] Well, I guess in high school it started up a dive club. And I love the ocean. And people don’t realise and they still don’t know how important the ocean is for our global health. Now, the oceans produce more than 70 percent of our oxygen. The oceans actually regulate the global temperature. The oceans have been protecting us from these high rises of CO2. They’ve been absorbing it. And the scary bit is that as the oceans heat up, more CO2 bubbles out, and suddenly you have what we call runaway climate change. And, so I’m doing this because I like the concept of electric vehicles and they’re brilliant drive really driven one, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. And it’s good for the grandchildren, the future. We hope to leave a legacy here where the grandchildren are not worse off then than we are. And at the moment, they’re not facing a real hopeful future if we don’t change the way we do things. Steve Mabbs: [00:06:16] Yeah, good on you. So tell us a bit about ACE EV and your and your three vehicles that you’re working on. It sounds to me pretty exciting. They’re Australian made, assembled in Australia, I guess, for Australian conditions. And you’ve got three different models, but you’ve also kind of focused on the commercial vehicles first, which I thought was interesting. Can you tell us a bit about what your thinking was there and where you’re heading with these vehicles? Greg McGarvie: [00:06:43] And that was really guided by Charles and Gerhardt and I questioned them at the start but now I understand the wisdom of what they proposed because we’re effectively in a marketplace where there’s not a lot of competition that’s certainly got to come. And as I said, our focus is an affordable vehicle, it’s the last mile delivery utility vehicle, it’s not meant for long distance travel between cities, for vehicles coming along later on that will do that. And the big thing we wanted to do is help with energy management. So in effect, it can be used as a source of energy, can be used to move energy from place to place. And if it’s a handyman or a builder with one of the electric vehicles, he can plug his tools into it. So in the old days, we went to a building site and you had to have a pole put up with 240V. You can go to a building site now as a vehicle and do a lot of the work using the vehicle. Steve Mabbs: [00:07:41] And I see you’re focusing on, I read somewhere I think you’re sort of pricing the vehicles roughly $40k to $50k – in that sort of price range, is that right? Greg McGarvie: [00:07:49] Yeah, they’re all under $40K. The ute, which is a little bit like the Subaru Brumby, which is a very popular farm vehicle. It’s a bit bigger than Brumby (even though it doesn’t look it, it is) – it’s $25,995 round figures, $26k, Plus, what we’re saying, is rent or lease the battery, because pricing energy of the battery packs is just going to change so much. And the advantage of leasing, of course, is if something goes wrong with it, it’s a quick swap over and the lease of the rental keeps going. But I think that the key point is that when you go out and buy your old fossil fuel vehicle, you don’t go out and buy five years of fuel with it. And effectively, when you buy an electric vehicle, you’re buying a battery, that’s what you’re doing. So, we’re saying buy the vehicle, battery separate and just lease or rent it and you can fuel it from your power solar time, or off your energy at home Steve Mabbs: [00:08:46] Fantastic. And so what’s the current availability of those vehicles, Greg? Greg McGarvie: [00:08:52] Very tough. Steve Mabbs: [00:08:54] Where do I sign up? And how long will it take to get one? Greg McGarvie: [00:08:58] Well, we’ve made a promise to ourselves to deliver our f
