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Episode 27 - Future of Electric Vehicle Charging

To reach net zero, we need to electrify transport—from personal vehicles to heavy goods trucks.

In this episode, Edoardo Taricco, a mechanical engineer and recent graduate of the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures programme at Imperial College London, explores the future of electric vehicles and sustainable travel with guests Gregory Offer, Professor in electrochemical science and engineering at Imperial College London and Jade Edwards, Head of Insights at Zapmap. Together they discuss topics such as:

The evolving EV market – Trends in consumer behavior, policy, and global adoption.
Charging infrastructure – Innovations, accessibility, and user experience.
Electrifying heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) – Technological challenges, emerging solutions, and alternatives beyond batteries.
The role of EVs in grid stability – How bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology could reshape energy systems.
Decarbonizing transport – The need for smaller EVs, active transport, and better public transit integration.

Episode Overview

with timestamps

[00:00:00] – Introduction and episode overview
[00:00:42] – Meet the guests: Gregory Offer and Jade Edwards
[00:03:20] – The shift to EVs: consumer trends and policy drivers
[00:06:40] – Overcoming range anxiety and lifestyle changes with EVs
[00:12:17] – The potential of EVs in supporting the energy grid
[00:19:51] - Charging infrastructure: accessibility, investment, and rollout challenges
[00:30:35] – Standardization and payment systems in EV charging
[00:40:03] – Battery technology, thermal management, and future improvements
[00:50:01] – The relationship between EV sales and charging infrastructure growth
[00:53:05] – The rise of SUVs and challenges in decarbonizing transport
[00:58:34] – Electrifying heavy goods vehicles: challenges and solutions
[01:02:34] – Future of fleet charging and shared infrastructure
[01:03:06] – Closing thoughts and where to find our guests

Meet Our Guests

Edoardo Taricco

Edoardo is an alumni of the Energy Futures Lab, MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures with a background in mechanical engineering. His interests cover the entire energy sector, with a particular inclination for energy economics, funding for emerging technologies, and space-based solar power. Edoardo is dedicated to advancing disruptive energy solutions that will impact people’s lives for the better; whether in an environmental, social or economic sense.

Connect with Edoardo on LinkedIn

Greg Offer

Greg is part of the large interdisciplinary and multi-departmental Electrochemical Science and Engineering group. His research is based around battery, fuel cell and supercapacitor technology, and their application, mostly in transport, from the fundamental science to integration and systems engineering. Greg has worked with multiple industry partners, and successfully delivered multiple Innovate UK and industry projects. He is the Principle Investigator of the Faraday Institution funded Multi-Scale Modelling project, which helped create the PyBaMM and DandeLiion modelling environments.

Greg is a prolific entrepreneur and his research group has led to multiple spin-outs, Galvanic Energy Ltd, Cognition Energy Ltd, Breathe Battery Technologies Ltd, About:Energy Ltd and Ionetiq Ltd (only some of which he is personally involved). He is also the co-founder of one of the premier automotive conferences in the UK, the Future Propulsion Conference (FPC) series.

Jade Edwards

Jade is the Head of Insights at Zapmap and has 10 years’ experience in the data and insights industry. Before joining Zapmap, Jade worked across a range of roles and variously led operations, product and sales teams. As the leading source of EV charging data and insights, Jade’s Insights team now provides unrivalled data and expert analysis into the shape and usage of EV charging infrastructure, as well as the attitudes and behaviours of EV drivers.

Related Resources

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