Fleets of the Future, with Darren Ragheb

Your car? Probably one of the least efficient things you own. It costs a fortune in materials and carbon to build, then spends most of its life parked outside doing absolutely nothing. 

So what happens when mobility stops being an object we own and becomes a service we use, and what if that shift could finally make the circular economy real in transport? 

In this episode we chat to  Darren Ragheb, Principal Strategic Programmes Manager at CPI, to explore his emerging idea of regenerative autonomous fleets: networked self-driving vehicles designed not only to get people from A to B safely, but to regenerate value through smarter maintenance, remanufacture and material recovery. 

We talk about why fleet ownership changes accountability, how sensors and AI can predict failures and schedule repairs, and why circular design becomes an economic driver when operators are responsible for the whole lifecycle. 

We also get practical about the EV transition. Batteries concentrate high-value critical materials, which can strengthen the business case for recycling and reuse, but real repairability still matters. We talk right to repair, insurance pressures and why design decisions can either enable a thriving repair network or lock it out. 

And finally we're onto what cities, manufacturers and policymakers need to do next, plus the data layer like digital product passports and dynamic life cycle analysis that can track material flows at scale. 

Listen in to our exploration of future mobility! 

Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.

Transcript

Welcome To Good Guys

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good guys. A podcast series on sustainability. Hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability, which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Danlo from Mira Agency Istanbul and This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.

SPEAKER_04 0:40

This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated, and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So in this episode, we're going to talk to Darren Ragev, who is Principal Strategic Programs Manager at the UK Innovation Organization, CPI, and has been exploring the fascinating idea of regenerative autonomous fleets, which we will dive into a moment.

Can Chemistry Help Save Us

SPEAKER_04 1:30

You might be our first chemist, Darren. Darren led on the creation of a 28 million pound UK national formulation centre and partnered with Innovate UK and Unilever to secure a 60 million public investment for smart, sustainable plastic packaging. All very interesting work. And now on to some really cool stuff. So, Darren, thanks so much for taking the time to jump on the podcast with Delma and myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Delma. Thank you, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

So before anything else, we always like to listen to personal stories of our guests. Darren, can chemistry save the world? And of course, what led you on your journey to be at the heart of materials, products, and sustainable innovation?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah, thank you. That's a great question to get started on. Something I think about a lot. Yes, I I believe chemists and well, chemistry chemists can save the world in partnership with our colleagues, biologists, engineers, designers, makers, technical people who actually build the world. Ultimately they're the ones who can realize it. So at CPI, I had the pleasure of working with a lot of brilliant scientists who develop new sensors for identifying cancer earlier, or biological alternatives for agrochemicals. So moving away from synthetic active ingredients for farming, new materials for batteries and electrification as well. So chemistry runs through all of it. It's not a silver bullet. We can't do it without the right support from economists, policymakers, industry. But I do believe we we can build the future. My story, I yeah, I started as a formulation chemist. I was developing crop protection products, did that for several years. Really, really I suppose it kind of helped me to open my eyes up to I I was motivated by solving tricky problems and but seeing an impact within a reasonable timescale. So solve problems. I'm a problem solver. I think that's how I define myself. But tend to lean towards ones that kind of have a you can kind of see and point to what you've the impact you've had on the world. So over my career, I've I've increasingly moved in the direction of bigger, trickier problems. So started to in the middle part of my career develop uh business cases to set up new centres, new initiatives. Yeah, National Formulation Centre, that was a great one. Currently working in the northwest of England with greater Manchester partners, University of Manchester, to develop programs that help kind of towns that maybe are kind of forgotten and a little bit and not innovation and a lot of the productivity and value creation isn't kind of an investment hasn't spread to those areas. So programs that kind of try and stimulate growth in in those kinds of towns, particularly in materials and manufacturing. And then, yeah, regenerative uh autonomous fleets. I've kind of set my set my sights a little bit further into the future, maybe 20, 30 years, at the same discipline trying to trying to solve complex problems.

What Regenerative Autonomous Fleets Mean

SPEAKER_04 4:44

So so let's get into that problem solving and that future future gaze and that you've been casting, because we're gonna focus today on those fleets. So I hate to admit I'd not really thought about this before. So and but that's also really exciting. Because when when I I read your piece, Darren, it's like, wow, I just totally hadn't thought about that. So regenerative autonomous fleets and you exploring how they could be more than just cleverer ways for us all to get around, but actually could be a circular economy solution too. So we're gonna have to aren't there. This is new territory for a lot of us. We're gonna have to ask you to do an explainer on this one for us, Darren. What's the elevator pitch and what what are they?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yeah, exactly. Good question. Regenerative autonomous fleets. We we're taking the idea of autonomous vehicles. So so I think most people know that autonomous vehicles are self-driving cars, don't have to be cars, but vehicles that move themselves. And we're increasingly seeing that those are networked as fleets in cities, usually big cities. So we're seeing fleets from companies like Wave and Waymo and Hoover starting to have ride-sharing services. So we're moving to a place where we'll have less individual ownership of vehicles and they will be networked. And at the moment they're being networked for good reasons to optimize, to get you from A to B, to optimize for the journey. Less energy, less cost, few accidents, ideally, no accidents, and a pleasurable journey. And I suppose regenerative, that's our bit we're sticking on the front, is trying to take this platform and use it to optimize for how we use the materials that build those fleets. So you've got these vehicles now that are really well censored up and you know they they know what's going on outside of them and inside of them. You've also got all this data that you can draw on. You've got the vehicles that are because they're autonomous, they're they're running 24-7 effectively, and they can be wherever they need to be. When when there's downtime, they can go back to a repair shop or or whatever. So you've got these kind of you've got these, you've got these tools and capabilities now to actually start optimizing for materials as well. So it's it's it's it's a closed system that to exemplify the circular economy effectively. And what that should start to do is see rather than we just kind of repair or replace parts inefficiently, we it starts to become a lot more efficient and economic that becomes an economic driver for the owners of the fleets and the operators to start to do more remanufacture, reuse, reconditioning, not always just scrapping stuff and and and kind of repairing it on an ad hoc basis. I should just quickly say, I mean, for me, the idea came from a place of I do think we're on the verge of an amazing technological revolution. I think AI is kind of the icing on the cape for me in terms of the digital revolution. But I I've been sat pondering a lot of the stories about where that's heading. I wasn't, I thought they were, I wanted to kind of chip in and and say my. I felt a lot of the stories were quite, I will put people on the moon and or no one will ever work again. And so they seemed quite extreme in terms of you know, tech giant feeding a market with stories markets wanted to hear, or sensational uh newspapers and uh people spreading fear a little bit, I suppose, starting to put stories out that feed conspiracy theories and things. And I just wanted I think this is I'm not sure how what will come of of uh RAFs, but I I wanted to kind of encourage people to start putting some different ideas out there about what and for me, this is a slightly more balanced view of where where technology can be held heading. So that that was the motivation behind it.

Why Fleet Economics Changes Everything

SPEAKER_01 9:00

I I want to provoke the idea market slow sensation, but I won't. Still, let's start with the economics, market realities, and such innovations in tech, including sensors and AI, are making autonomous vehicles even more competitive, and we could be at a tipping point where they simply are more cost-effective than regular private cars. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 9:30

That's the that's the belief. The markets certainly believe that, you know, billions of pounds are being invested in in this this area now, particularly with the kind of AI dimension driving it all. So yeah, and and and I think there's there's a couple of other factors. You know, there's a steady trend of people concentrating within cities and mega cities. So that so that adds to the economic feasibility of it. People, the younger people don't feel the same urge to own cars as they used to. So that so there's there's economic, there's technical, there's there's social dimensions to it. But where will it take off? Yeah, where will it take off first? For me, it uh it it it kind of uh it goes with where where do autonomous vehicles generally in autonomous fleets, where do they where do they see the most where where is the most kind of uh concentration of demand for uptake gonna be? And that's probably in big, big cities, I would have thought.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

So and and so here's the creative bit I really liked in in what you your thought posed, Darren, which was you said, what if future mobility systems were designed to regenerate value rather than slowly consume it? So that's actually such a big statement when you start to look at it. When you read it for the third time, you're going, Howdy hell, that's interesting. So you're talking about a singular circular system for materials that go into vehicles that can be unlocked as soon as we see them as fleets that we use rather than objects that we own. Would that be fair?

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Yeah, that's it. That's it in a nutshell. I think I think it's that economics that drives all of this and unlocks this. It's not really technology. It's all about accountability and ownership. At the moment, we have linear systems where automated companies they make cars, they sell them, they've made their money. And then the owner and the millions, billions of owners around the world are accountable for retaining that value and maintaining that value. And so that means repairing and keeping your vehicle in a good condition. But we're human and and and we don't, and all the resources aren't necessarily there for us to do that. So we buy a car and then we sell it after two, three years. So we pass gradually, we we kind of the chain of that accountability starts to fragment, and yeah, we we just get kind of leakage through a secondhand market, which is very immature, second, third hand market, and then the scrappage market happens, and some a little bit of values extracted from the materials at that point, and then we kind of don't know really what happens, and we kind of probably don't want to know. So, yeah, that that's that's really the logic and the thinking behind it. Yeah. And if you move to a fleet model, in theory, you have fewer owners or ownership is consolidated into fewer private operators, maybe it's a public-private partnership. These are the elements of the governance ownership that I I I don't know where exactly where it's heading, but generally with I think the the opportunity is taking us in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So, for a bit of context, and you just opened the door for this conversation. How

How Broken Today’s Car System Is

SPEAKER_01 13:04

bad is our current linear system for vehicle fleets? I mean, presumably we are seeing a lot of waste, inefficiencies, and carbon emissions courtesy of a non-circular automobile sector. And is that getting worse with a transition to EVs?

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Yeah, well, I'm I'm in my home office. I'm looking out my window, my car's sat on the drive, and it's sat there on average for most people, 95% of the time. So it starts there. Like we're we're we've we've all this energy has gone into producing vehicles, and then we only use them for five percent of the time. And then, yeah, I I I was kind of trying to find stats on how much recycling actually happens, how much material coverage. It's it's difficult. It's difficult to find the stats. I think one thing I did find was some evidence that it's it's obviously not great. The automotive industry in Europe got fined around 450 million euros a couple of years ago for effectively forming a cartel to not engage in good spirit with an end-of-car life directive. So some policy that was put in place to incentivize automotive industry to own more of it at the cost of the end of life of vehicles. And this is all in the public domains, and I'm not naming names, so you know it's it's not controversial. Well, it's controversial, but it's okay for me to talk about it. But that tells me if if if those companies are are willing to take that kind of hit or in terms of not covering their forecasts of end of life, then it can't be great.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

It's extraordinary. The I do I find it because I can I can just about look out the window, Darren, and see our car. Because we had even though I don't like cars very much and I prefer my Brompton, we do have to do it every so often. And it is extraordinary, isn't it? It just sits there all day doing nothing, pointless. But so your thinking on bringing material efficiency into the autonomous fleet equation got me really thinking, not least around the design challenge and all of this, I think it's really interesting, and took me back to a project I don't think ever got enough attention, which was led by Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute, and called the Hypercar. And I just wondered whether you come across it, because it was it was absolutely brilliant design thinking at the time.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Yeah, you you brought it to my radar and I I hadn't seen it before, but I thought. Yeah, what a brilliant for me. That was so so this this this correct me if I'm wrong, Stu. This this is the idea that we set some real moonshot or kind of north star around moving to clean energy and and hyper lightweighting of vehicles, right? So we haven't seen the perfect exemplification of that, but I think that was a brilliant North Star for I think that's what the car industry is or the automotive industry has tried to do over the last 20 years. So I don't know if it was how inspired it was by that, but everything we see is mostly around clean energy, especially after the advent of or of uh or clean power of of Tesla, but also light wasting has has been huge for a long time. On electrification, because I forgot to answer Damla's question, electrification I think is actually probably making things better, ironically, because you've now got the battery, which is now 40-50% of the weight and volume, the weight and value, they correct me on the exact numbers, but a high value and weight of of the vehicle, and it's full of valuable critical materials

EVs, Repairability And Right To Repair

SPEAKER_03 16:54

that people actually want to get back. So actually, it has incentivized circularity more just because it's the the value is more concentrated. And uh electric vehicles have fewer moving parts, so and you know, about 20 compared to in terms of the drive chain versus drivetrain versus the internal combustion engine, which is thousands of parts, so fewer points of failure and easier to fix. So again, that uh that that that reduces leakage and and that reduces points of failure in materials. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 17:32

Just one quick follow-up though, Darren. The I was reading a piece because and I didn't know this at all. Insurance rates for EVs are higher in the UK because there's apparently one, and that I just wonder how this factors into whether you come across circular economy debates in the EV marketplace, because some of the components, particularly in the Chinese built cars, are quite tightly integrated into a large piece that makes it harder to repair in some circumstances. So I'm wondering whether there needs to be a slight sort of wave of innovation within EVs themselves to make your regenerative vision work.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah, yeah. I think there's definitely something there about at the very least, enabling it's it's the right to repair, isn't it? So in principle, what I've said is true, but in design, it it has to be practical. And it's gotta be the the the model I'm talking about, there can't just be one go-to remanufacturer or or or servicer. Uh it's gotta be a kind of network. So so it's got to ideally be designed in a way that it's relatively open source. What's the rhyme balancer? I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Well, I mean we're gonna find out, right? Maybe we don't know yet, but we're gonna find out. So I wanna come to the think piece you've written.

The Roadmap: Vision, Policy, Data

SPEAKER_01 19:05

In that piece, setting out the case for regenerative autonomous fleets, you say that many of the trends needed to support RAFs are already emerging with governments placing a greater emphasis on critical material security and supply chain resilience, for example, and innovations like digital passports becoming more common. So talk us to the pathway the world needs to take to make these flits an everyday experience for people like me having no clue about what those terms mean. So cycling, public transport, how will it work?

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Yeah, this is this is the how do you do it? That's the difficult part, isn't it? And this is very early days, you know, this is thinking that's only emerged in the last six months or so. I think, and and and this is something I'm I intend to collaborate with all the relevant stakeholders on. Um, I think this thing only moves as quickly as the the non-regenerative autonomous fleets move. And I it it's difficult to read that. The the kind of optimists and investors will say we'll we'll we'll see these kinds of fleets at scale within five, ten years. We could be sitting here in five, ten years, in all honesty, and not much could have changed. But I I think it's coming, it might be 20 years away. But so this only moves as quickly as as as as as the economics of of autonomous vehicles generally and autonomous weeds generally. Um I I think it starts with aligning on a vision. And I think that's one thing we can do now, regardless of the pace and and and getting all the relevant stakeholders to see. Now, this isn't this isn't just a nice to have. This this makes the operators and owners money. This and it certainly saves them money and it makes it gives them competitive advantage for cities and places. It anchors local manufacturing and design and the creation of services that they can export as well. So I think the first thing is get people aligned on the vision. And then in parallel, there'll be there'll be some there'll there'll be the need to develop policy to incentivize the adoption. We'll need to we'll need to run the numbers. Like well, there actually needs to be some economic analysis on how and when does this make sense? Because it won't make sense with five vehicles. Will it make sense with a hundred? Will it make sense? It's going to be in the thousands, in my estimate. So at what point do you actually does this actually make economic sense and how do you build a runway to it? And then I think if yeah, you mentioned digital passports. In parallel, then we need to kind of develop platforms for accessing data, connecting data. So where material flows, where materials are flowing, where are they? What's what what's what's the Value of them, the the kind of platforms that where where have the materials come from? The kind of digital passport idea. Dynamic platforms for doing life cycle analysis. So is is is this thing how can we optimize this thing to make it as sustainable as possible? And by the way, it's constantly changing every second. So we need dynamic platforms for that. So really exciting in terms of building some of that enabling capability as well.

unknown 22:28

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

I absolutely love it. I mean, I'm a bit geeky, so I'm gonna I totally love all this, Danway. And it's before you can get I I we could carry on, talk about industrial symbiosis, which is one of my favorite bits and bobs, and how that works. And I also just do wonder whether there's a scenario where these regenerative fleets are going to their sort of robot station where the sensors said we need to repair this bit, and whether there's an intraoperability with other material flows at that station for other city material.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Anyway, I can do that. It completely forces us to reimagine how we do manufacturing completely. Actually, yeah. Uh so that's that's that's the next one.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

You know, we as humans always first imagine, then do it. Yeah, exactly. Optimist of this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Yes, you are. No, no, I I totally love it. My mind's getting blown a little bit. Anyway, we we're gonna have to get to our last question, Darren.

Smiles: Beach, Kitesurfing, Trampolines

SPEAKER_04 23:33

Very important one. Our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So, what object, place, or person always makes you smile?

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Can I do two? Oh, go on then. Well, well, the I've I've got the kind of one that ties in really nicely to sustainability, and then I've got one which is it's very practical and so so the sustainability one, my my favorite place at the moment, we were talking about it earlier, is Wallacey Beach, which is just off the coast of the Wirral, which is near Liverpool in the north of England, and I'm currently learning to kite surf. And I mean, it it's for me, it kind of joins up and connects a lot of my world at the moment from a sustainability point of view. We've from from finding 15 kilograms of plastic and materials. Plastics aren't all bad. I'm getting I'm learning a new skill, I'm getting fit. It's it's adrenaline rush, it's also peaceful. I'm looking out at the sea and I'm looking at the wind, driving turbines, but clean energy. So it's uh it's my happy place at the way. It's great. Yeah, yeah, it's great. The second one is is a trampoline. Much more practical. You you can't if you jump on a trampoline with a friend, you can't not smile. It's it's impossible. As long as you've been well to do it, it does something. It it does something kind of biologically in it does something in your brain. Try it.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

I mean, we've done hundreds of episodes, and now I can't believe that trampoline hasn't come up once yet. I mean, how how didn't we think about this?

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's the same as bouncy car, it's the same as a bounty castle, right? Yeah. Now you're right, I'm there with a mate or a partner, and yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

I'm wondering whether there is a trampoline strategy for global peace. I'm just putting it out there. It may take some unpacking, but if you know, when when they're doing the negotiations, it's all going south a little bit, and then the sort of Iranians and the American delegation sort of like, I spent a jump on a trampoline. Honestly, honestly. Breakthrough. Breakthrough, that's what we need. Well, Darren, that's been awesome. I mean, uh, regenerative fleets autonomous speeches was already exciting, but the tramping trampoline strategy for world peace is just that's break, that's breaking news. Tamla, we've run over again. Sorry. You're gonna have to wrap this up.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

That was a happy place for us all.

Wrap Up And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 26:09

So thanks to everyone who has listened to our Goodgeist podcast brought to you by the Do Not Smile Network of Agencies.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Um Make sure you listen to future episodes where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. So, Darren, Damler, see you soon.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Bye.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Thank you. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Goodgeist. A podcast series on sustainability. Brought to you by the DNS Network.