In this episode of the Journey to Zero podcast, host Georgia Lomas sits down with James Warren, Communications Manager at Lunaz, to delve into the world of upcycled electric vehicles (UEVs). James provides an insightful look into Lunaz’s role in transforming the transport industry through sustainable vehicle upcycling and electrification. He discusses the environmental impact of upcycling, the partnership between Lunaz and Biffa, and the future of UEVs in the UK and beyond. Join us as we explore the exciting world of upcycled electric vehicles and the potential they hold for achieving a sustainable, decarbonized transport industry.
[PODCAST TRANSCRIPT]
Georgia Lomas:
You’re listening to the Journey to Zero podcast hosted by Alltruck Zero. If you want to stay ahead of the game and find out more about the very latest green truck technology, or you’re looking for hints and tips on how to decarbonise your own fleet, then this is the place for you. In this podcast, we’ll be sitting down with the thought leaders who are guiding the way on the journey we’re all on as we work to decarbonise the transport industry.
Georgia Lomas:
We are welcoming James Warren from Lunaz to the podcast. Welcome, James.
James Warren:
Hello. Very nice to be on.
Georgia Lomas:
Could you introduce yourselves to the listeners?
James Warren:
Yeah, certainly. So James Warren and I look after communications here at Lunaz.
Georgia Lomas:
So could you give an introduction to Lunaz and what your role entails there?
James Warren:
So, to introduce the company, it was founded in 2018, so nearly five years ago by a gentleman called David Lorenz and also a gentleman called John Hilton. David came from an entrepreneurial background and had kind of a very sort of clear thought. There’s 2 billion vehicles that currently exist. We’re moving at rapid pace, obviously, to clean air powertrains, addressing the global air quality emergency, and obviously lots of sustainability topics around that. And really, he asked the question, what’s going to happen to those 2 billion vehicles? Are they going to be scrapped? Or worse still, are they going to be sort of pushed to other parts of the world and continue to emit for many more years to come? So really, Lunars was the answer to that question. How can upcycling and an approach to electrification, as Lunars has pioneered sustainably and more economically viably transition those 2 billion vehicles to clean air powertrains? And all that started in 2018 with the introduction of the lunar’s passenger car, offering, obviously electrifying Jaguars, beautiful Bentleys, Aston Martins, Range Rovers, that kind of thing, finding a real audience for that and socializing this idea that a vehicle can be really perfectly re engineered, restored, and given many, many more years of life under the lunar’s proprietary powertrain? And then that transitioned very quickly, as was the plan, into a much larger volume area, which is, of course, commercial vehicles. So that started a year or so ago with the introduction of the world’s first upcycled electric refuse truck on the Mercedes econic platform, 26 ton, and is going to be applied across multiple user cases, vehicle types.
James Warren:
And it’s going to be happening in factories across the world, all these upcycling electrification campuses. So an incredible amount of growth in five years. But it’s a business really driven by some very strong logic. Don’t scrap things, keep them out of landfill, reclaim millions and millions of tons in embedded carbon, and obviously billions of dollars in value versus scrapping and replacing.
Georgia Lomas:
Lunaz is known for being the first company to offer commercial upcycle electric vehicles, or uevs. So, could you elaborate on what uevs are and how they differ from traditional electric vehicles?
James Warren:
Definitely. Look, the company sort of has pioneered and therefore trademarked this term UEV upcycle electric vehicle. I think we’re all still getting used to all the acronyms around this kind of brave new world of clean air powertrains. Now, the U bit is obviously the really sort of critical bit. And it is this idea that has been proven out that a vehicle can be, in essence, taken down to the bare metal, it can be taken back down to a zero mile state, built back up and electrified, and it can find fantastic new use. So, for example, with a lunar’s upcycled electric refuse truck, these trucks tend to sort of live on seven year cycles. So they’re defleted after seven years. At the moment, they’re either scrapped or worse still, as I say, sold into some less privileged markets where they’re sweated quite significantly.
James Warren:
We’re stopping that cycle. We’re taking that vehicle in after seven years. It goes through a quite incredible proprietary and systemized upcycling process here at lunars in Silverstone. It’s then upgraded. All of the latest tech is added to it, latest safety systems. We completely refresh the interior. So clearly the operator feels like they’re getting an entirely new truck, which is very important that it’s compliant with all latest legislation. And in many ways, it’s functionally better than a new one, because, of course, when you’re upcycling something, you can make all sorts of changes directly in line with what the operator requires.
James Warren:
So that can mean anything from specifying the powertrain to a particular route and user case. So, for example, refuse trucks in urban settings do not need the same amount of energy storage as a refuse truck that’s rolling around in Scotland, or it’s not picking up a bin for the first sort of 40 miles of use. So we can spec the powertrain to that very specific requirement. And that means you’re getting something that’s functionally better. It’s obviously more sustainable and less expensive than buying a new alternative.
Georgia Lomas:
Sustainability is a key focus for Lunaz. Could you discuss the environmental impact of upcycling and remanufacturing vehicles compared to manufacturing new ones?
James Warren:
Well, look, in really simple terms. I mean, there are obviously enormous sustainability advantages to applying this approach of upcycling. I think it’s something we’re all going to be thinking about and we’re all going to be reading about an awful lot, this idea of a circular economy, taking materials that already exist and extending the life and finding new purpose. And frankly, this has been something that has been incredibly common across a number of industries, and it’s still a relatively new idea in the automotive world. But you think about aeroplanes. You don’t sit on a British Airways flight on an aeroplane that’s less than 20 years old. It is constantly maintained and upcycled in that sense, to ensure that it can last a lot longer. It’s the same with rail heavy plant machinery.
James Warren:
Even the fashion world is embracing this idea of circularity and upcycling. So really, the environmental advantages are very plain. We save 82% or so of the embedded carbon with every vehicle that we go and upcycle. So if you think about it, we’ve got a factory here in Silverstone with a potential to manufacture or remanufacture around 1100 vehicles a year. That’s just the first factory of a network that will be going around the world. So in one year at full production, we saved the equivalent weight of the Eiffel Tower. So they’re incredible sustainability advantages, as I say, reusing rather than pulling new materials out of the ground. And most critically as well, deleting polluting powertrains.
James Warren:
There is no other way that these powertrains can get removed from the planet, so to speak, sustainably. So every vehicle that gets upcycled, that powertrain, ICU powertrain, is decommissioned, it’s recycled, it’s no longer emitting. So we’re doing a lot for the air quality as well.
Georgia Lomas:
How does upcycling play a part in the UK’s journey to net zero transport?
James Warren:
I think the answer is it can play an enormous part. As I say, there’s all sorts of precedent from other mobility industries, transport industries, whether that’s obviously the aviation world, where you have these hugely sort of high value, incredibly sort of carbon burdensome vehicles. It makes so much sense to maintain them, to upcycle them, to remanufacture them, to ensure that they get as longer life as possible over decades, rather than sort of single years, has been the case within the automotive world. And it’s the same with rail. It’s funny enough, our operations director here comes from that world where they were, in essence, upcycling trains over many, many years. That is what we go and sit on when we get a train up to London or wherever it is we might be going. So it’s already sort of, in an unspoken way, playing a massive role in our overall mobility. I think what’s really exciting is all the potential to apply that to the automotive world and break this cycle of replacement.
James Warren:
These vehicles are exquisitely engineered. I mean, they’re incredibly durable, they’re incredibly well built. So there’s absolutely no reason why, for example, one of our refuse trucks can’t last another seven years and then have a third life refresh for 14, and maybe even a fourth to go to 21 years, which obviously saves lots of carbon in the carbon chain, but also lots of money for operators as well.
Georgia Lomas:
Yeah. So what challenges have you encountered in the upcycling and remanufacturing process, and how have you addressed these challenges?
James Warren:
I think it’s the cliche thing of we don’t necessarily see challenges. Of course, when you’re embarking on a big sort of engineering project, as I’m sure many of your clients will know or the people listening to this podcast, there are all sorts of solutions that you need to go and find. Our big thing has been to systemize, really, that upcycling process. So it is not a sort of one off bespoke job in that sense. It is a properly productionized process. And anyone who comes here to the factory in Silverstone will see that it very much looks like a new vehicle manufacturing facility. For example, our tooling will be able to tell you how talk a particular bolt is in order, that there is absolute sort of uniformity and kind of compliance to that remanufacturing and upcycling process. And I think that’s always the biggest challenge, is going and mapping out and creating new process and creating new sort of production approaches, saying that we’ve got some incredibly talented people.
James Warren:
I talked a little bit about John, the co founder of the business, or the first sort of technical director, and our chief technologist. Now, John came from a Formula One background where they were meeting challenges every day to go and win races. He was a double Formula One world champion and has built the most incredible technical team of what I call brilliant engineers, creative problem solvers, who have been able to, as I say, create a proprietary and really systemized approach to upcycling. And what that means is that we can apply this process with absolute confidence. We can apply it at global scale with a kind of a hub and spoke approach, meaning that we can really go and attack this market and go and make some big difference with big volume.
Georgia Lomas:
How do you ensure that upcycled electric vehicles meet or exceed the performance standards of new vehicles, particularly in terms of safety and reliability?
James Warren:
I think the first thing is we set out when we started this company, or when David and John started the company, we set golden rules that the vehicle must exceed the performance of certainly the original as a diesel vehicle, but actually it must functionally exceed what’s available from the new market. And that gives people then a compelling reason to go and opt for an upcycled vehicle. The second point was we set a rule that there must be no penalty to doing the right thing, no penalty to the sustainability, basically. So again, that the vehicle must perform and outperform a new vehicle or IC equivalent. So what do we do to ensure that? I mean, first of all, it’s within that exhaustive upcycling process, as I say, very proprietary. But what you’re getting is a vehicle that’s not only brought to a factory new standard, in many ways it’s improved. So with refuse trucks, we put in extra coatings within the rear of the lorry, in essence, where the rubbish goes in order to enhance its durability and reduce maintenance time. We’ve replaced rubber bushes with very hard wearing material within the lifters, again, to improve performance and endurance, and then within the cabin and sort of within the way that the driver interacts with the vehicle.
James Warren:
It’s latest safety tech, latest cameras, putting things like Apple Carplay in, right down to putting the right amount of cup holders within the vehicle. And really what that’s been built upon. We’ve spent miles and miles and hours and hours and days and days sending our operators, sending our engineers, sending our production people out on refuse truck rounds and out there on the front line, understanding the user cases for these vehicles. And the result is something that is very much built for the industry to solve the problems of the industry. So we sort of see less challenges. We don’t see it as a sort of defensive position. We see it as an amazing opportunity to be able to much more rapidly respond to the exact requirements of an industry and to build a product that’s built entirely in their image. And that works incredibly well.
James Warren:
And that’s one of the real advantages, actually, of the upcycling process. It’s important to also say that we stand by that with a warranty that exactly matches a new vehicle. So again, you’re getting all of that sustainability, you’re getting that quite significant cost saving without any functional penalty. This really is kind of a win win.
Georgia Lomas:
Fantastic. So could you tell our listeners a bit about the partnership between Biffa and Lunaz and what have you learned during this partnership?
James Warren:
Absolutely delighted to. I think when you’re a proud british company, it’s great to go into business with leaders and certainly the leading UK sustainable waste management company. And look, this is a long term partnership and it’s one we’re very proud of, that we’ve signed a long term fleet electrification commitment, or BiFA have signed a long term fleet electrification commitment where a pretty significant proportion of the volume of their fleet will come to. Lunaz will undergo an exhaustive upcycling electrification process and really be a big driver of Bifa’s already very significant strides towards net zero and towards really being a sustainable frontline waste management company. We love the waste management sector. It really is the sort of the front line of sustainability in so many ways that is most of our interaction with the idea of recycling. It is absolutely critical and we’re enormously proud that our vehicles are going and doing a very frontline job, like picking up the UK’s rubbish. So to be in partnership with Biffer as a real leader in that field is fantastic news for us.
Georgia Lomas:
In terms of the broader market. Where do you see the opportunities and challenges for upcycled electric vehicles in the coming years?
James Warren:
Well, as I say, we’ve already got a very strong passenger vehicle offering. That’s obviously what we’d say is the very sort of high end of the market. So the world’s first electric upcycled Range Rovers, Aston Martin’s, Bentleys, Jaguars, that kind of thing. Actually, we see an awful lot of opportunities there for the institutional markets, say hotels, restaurants, casinos, who want to do something from a sustainability point of view for the beautiful kind of house cars that will go and take their guests around so that business will continue to grow, it will continue to be a very important part of Lunaz and it’ll be an important driver of research and development as well, as it has been from day one. But actually, we see enormous opportunities in all sorts of other segments. And while we probably won’t talk too many specifics because these are all to be revealed, we certainly see enormous opportunity in the construction sector. We’re having conversations with some of the UK’s and the world’s leading logistics companies. Anything that a clean air powertrain can go and be applied to can also have the upcycling process applied to it.
James Warren:
So we’re very interested and continuing to talk to any business with a large scale commercial fleet that seeks a more economical and more sustainable and in many ways functionally better route to decarbonizing that fleet. Because we know fleet owners are being asked an awful lot. These bans are coming and they’re coming quickly. It is going to create an awful lot of pressure on the supply chain, on the supply of new vehicles. We know what happens when there’s pressure on supply chain. Price obviously goes through the roof, and we want to be a really viable route for these companies as partners of ours to continue to grow, to continue to do the right thing from a fleet transition point of view.
Georgia Lomas:
So what advice would you give to any companies looking at upcycling their vehicles?
James Warren:
Well, first of all, talk to Lunaz, but also, quite seriously, it starts for us with really an analysis of GT cycle. Can an electric vehicle fulfill the requirement? That’s number one. Number two, once you understand that is, how do I then create a roadmap? Because it’s not going to happen completely overnight. Nobody’s going to kind of walk in and say, I’ve got a fleet of 2000 vehicles, I’d like them all upcycled tomorrow. It’s about creating a roadmap to achieving that, getting the infrastructure in place. And again, look, we have many, many conversations with companies just on that exploratory level. We’ve got very smart engineers, absolute world experts in not only engineering EV vehicles, but how you service them, how you maintain them, how you manage your charging infrastructure. But what I would say is, it’s coming, it’s going to happen, it’s legislated for and start thinking about it today.
James Warren:
And we’re very happy to have that conversation.
Georgia Lomas:
In your opinion, do you think the UK will achieve our 2050 net zero commitments? If not, what needs to change?
James Warren:
Well, look, I certainly don’t think it’s for me to stare into the crystal ball and sort of make a long term prediction like that. I think what I would do is look at the positives and look at the quite significant leaps that have been going on. Obviously, although moving the ban on internal combustion engine vehicles is a very significant one, it’s a huge commitment, and it’s one that industries responded to. I mean, industries responded in an incredible way. You see the ramp up of not only EV passenger vehicles, but on the commercial vehicle side, and we’re always applauding vibrancy within the commercial EV side, and really happy to see the oems bringing quite incredible vehicles to market. So that is where legislation sends a very strong signal to the market, and the market goes and responds and starts to develop the product and critically starts to develop the infrastructure to support that product. And we’re certainly seeing that, that there remains a long way to go. But actually the commercial vehicle segment, where you have, in essence, ownership over your own infrastructure with yards, certainly with the waste management industry, that really is and can be the low hanging fruit that can be a fantastic place to start that vehicle electrification journey, start building that infrastructure, take a leadership position, because, as we know, because of legislation, it’s going to happen.
James Warren:
Does that answer your 2050 question? I’ve sort of sat on the fence on it, no, but we’ve certainly seen some giant leaps forward and absolutely see this idea of circularity and certainly see upcycling as a big part of that. And that was something very much spoken about at the last World Economic Forum, that upcycled vehicles, circular vehicles, can save 75 80% in carbon terms, in emission terms versus current options. Well, that can only be a giant step towards us achieving those goals.
Georgia Lomas:
What exciting plans are on the horizon for Lunaz?
James Warren:
Look, Lunaz continues to grow at pace. As I say, we’re sort of standing on the cusp of a fifth birthday, and you can take a moment to reflect that the company started, as I say, back in 2018, three people with incredibly good ideas and pretty incredible progress towards now 250 people here at Silverstone. A really ambitious recruitment plan next year. So creating those high value jobs and getting out there and not only building on the success of the Mercedes econic platform and many other applications for that beyond waste management, because as we know, it’s a hugely competent vehicle for a number of other sectors getting out there and introducing new commercial vehicle, upcycle electric vehicle products. So Ludas is growing rapidly. It’s hugely ambitious, as it always has been, and it’ll certainly be continued growth here in the UK and then facilities all over the world. So very exciting.
Georgia Lomas:
Thank you, James. If one of our listeners wanted to get in touch or find out more about Lunaz, how would they do?
James Warren:
So, very simple info at Lunaz group, and that’s constantly monitored and we’d be delighted to answer any inquiries.
Georgia Lomas:
Thank you so much for your time, James. That’s been really informative and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Lunaz.
James Warren:
Thank you so much. Delighted to be on. Thank you.