You were the advocate for it from the University of Melbourne in its formative stages, if I recall.

Yeah, that's right, Cameron.

So your listeners will know me from a previous podcast.

So obviously I'm a biochemist by training, interested in knowledge transfer and getting impact out in the community in my various roles.

And there was the opportunity after COVID to put up ideas that would be jointly funded by Victorian state governments and the universities, right? So this was all under the Victorian Higher Education State Investment So I was working in a tech transfer business development role at the moment.

And previous to my job in the University of Melbourne, I'd spent time in Victorian government, particularly in agricultural research and development.

So I knew that there was a couple of really clear targets that state government was interested in hitting.

you know,

But hybrid growth, outpacing electric vehicles, what are you seeing as far as, and I know this is based on the vehicles that are being registered with ICBC, what are you seeing there?

Yeah, so this would be vehicles registered, like purchased here and registered.

Also vehicles that are imported as well.

That's not as many, of course, but that's part that fits into this category.

So what's interesting here when we talk about EVs and hybrids, you know, EVs, very popular, but hybrids are now quite a bit more popular than EVs.

And we started to see this shift in 2023.

So we go back to 2023, electric vehicles, just over 34,000.

So what are you seeing there?

RPM, the first inaugural Sydney RPM, have you been to either here or in the

States have been to an RPM event before? No, I've been to a lot of American events, but never an RPM.

Melbourne has run a version of an RPM for quite a few years, but it's...

It's very focused on Victorian modelling.

I'm an American modeller.

So I was very keen to get up here, support Justin and to see how it all comes together.

And yeah, it's been a great success, obviously.

It's quite amazing, isn't it?

Now, if, if phones vanish tomorrow, how much safer would our roads really be in your mind?

I think our roads would be in- incredibly safer.

We know on average distracted driving is a factor in over 5,200, or close to 5,200, injuries each year.

79 deaths are related to distracted driving while behind the wheel.

You know, it's very easy to do.

I think people that do it think, "Oh, I'm okay.

I can, I can look at my phone and drive.

Are we finally s- I guess, seeing or maybe even admitting driving is, is emotionally or can be emotionally exhausting?