Jun 8, 2026 · 36 min · 10 segments
Demand for electric vehicles is soaring in Australia and around the world. But in 30 years' time, will we still need to charge our cars before hitting the road, or will autonomous vehicles powered by…
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Neil MartinHost
I know these episodes are called Engineering the Future, but I wanted to start maybe with a little bit of history to put into context where maybe we are today currently with cars.
Going all the way back to 1908, nearly 120 years ago, and the first affordable mass-produced automobile.
It seems to me that from that moment and for many decades, right up until the 21st century, nothing much really changed in that people filled up a car with fossil fuel, they got behind the wheel and drove themselves from point A to point B, and the vehicle itself didn't really do very much apart from help get them there.
And at the moment, we have a significant number of greener and cleaner cars on the road.
Do you agree with that general assessment? And if so, how exciting is it for you and also the general public, I guess, to finally be at a point where revolution in the automotive technology world appears to be imminent?
So to be able to sort of Working in an industry and have had a career that has been able to blend those two together is fantastic, whether it be in motorsport or not.
There's so much more impetus and effect on electrification or changing what we do.
It's funny, it's a weird thing to think, but I was driving my car the other day and I was just in my environment thinking that we've still got pedals in the car to make the car go and the car to stop.
We've done nothing there really in those basic fundamentals over those years.
And how innovation and technology has been fairly stagnant over that period.
I know these episodes are called Engineering the Future, but I wanted to start maybe with a little bit of history to put into context where maybe we are today currently with cars.
Going all the way back to 1908, nearly 120 years ago, and the first affordable mass-produced automobile.
It seems to me that from that moment and for many decades, right up until the 21st century, nothing much really changed in that people filled up a car with fossil fuel, they got behind the wheel and drove themselves from point A to point B, and the vehicle itself didn't really do very much apart from help get them there.
And at the moment, we have a significant number of greener and cleaner cars on the road.
Do you agree with that general assessment? And if so, how exciting is it for you and also the general public, I guess, to finally be at a point where revolution in the automotive technology world appears to be imminent?
So to be able to sort of Working in an industry and have had a career that has been able to blend those two together is fantastic, whether it be in motorsport or not.
There's so much more impetus and effect on electrification or changing what we do.
It's funny, it's a weird thing to think, but I was driving my car the other day and I was just in my environment thinking that we've still got pedals in the car to make the car go and the car to stop.
We've done nothing there really in those basic fundamentals over those years.
And how innovation and technology has been fairly stagnant over that period.
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