Podcasts

Sustainable EV Global Circumnavigation with Ben Scott-Geddes, Fering Technologies – Part 2

Carries 50% more than an H1 Hummer at ⅔ the weight with a skin from a high-end walking boot

The Fering Pioneer, a sustainable way to drive pole to pole

What capabilities would a vehicle that can successfully circumnavigate the globe need to possess? It would need to function in extreme heat, freezing temperatures, rugged terrain, and smooth highways. This is exactly what the Pioneer truck has been designed and is being built to accomplish. On top of all that, it will also be a hybrid truck that is eco-friendly.

The primary market for this truck will be adventurers, rainforest protection agencies, antarctic explorers, and vaccine transporters, among others. The goal will be to provide them with consistent performance in some of the most remote parts of the world.

In this episode, the second part out of two, Ed Bernardon interviews Ben Scott-Geddes, the founder of Fering Technologies, a company that is developing the Pioneer hybrid truck. He’ll share with us the qualities that differentiate their truck from other trucks as well the progress they’ve made so far.

Some Questions I Ask:

  • What made you shift from designing sports cars to building trucks? (0:48)
  • How does the Pioneer truck compare to other trucks? (06:44)
  • What do you estimate is the miles/gallon for your truck? (10:17)
  • Why would you use a leather-like material on the body instead of metal? (10:49)
  • When can I buy a Pioneer Truck and how much will it cost me? (18:38)

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

  • How Ferrari develops its sports cars (02:00)
  • What goes into making the Pioneer truck lightweight compared to other trucks (08:56)
  • How the truck achieves fuel economy and efficiency (14:29)
  • Qualities that make a lithium-titanium-oxide battery the best fit for the Pioneer truck (16:55)
  • What the future holds for the Pioneer truck (21:46)

Connect with Ben Scott-Geddes:

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Connect with Ed Bernardon:

Ed Bernardon: Imagine a truck with 50% more carrying capacity than an H1 Hummer, yet ⅔ of the weight. It might not sound too extreme in today’s ever-evolving EV world, but what happens when you replace the vehicle’s traditional metal body with a more weight-efficient body that has a breathable skin, like you find on a high-end walking boot? Imagine, then, same truck getting 50-100 miles per gallon, with a drastically reduced carbon footprint for any truck in this class, and also keeping you comfortable while driving across the most challenging terrain in the world.

Welcome to the Future Car Podcast. I’m your host Ed Bernardon and my conversation with Ben Scott-Geddes continues as we discuss his journey from designing ultra-fast sports cars to electric trucks. We’ll also explore more of what sets the Pioneer apart from a traditional truck or SUV—including fabric technology that allows the owner to do a body makeover overnight.

Tune in and hear part two of my conversation with the founder of Fering Technologies, Ben Scott-Geddes, on today’s episode.

Ed Bernardon: So, exciting career: designing sports cars that are almost too scary to drive. So, what makes you, I don’t know if you’d say shift gears, but now you’re making a truck. What a-ha moment did you have that made you want to do that?

Ben Scott-Geddes: I don’t know if it was an a-ha moment, but it arrived over a period of years when I was at Ferrari doing the LaFerrari, the F-150, which was an incredible engineering achievement in the best sports car company in the world. Period. I mean, you can’t compete with them. They’re the best people and the most wonderful products.

Ed Bernardon: Now, why do you say that? What aspect of them makes them that?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Every aspect, really. From sports cars, they’ve been doing it the longest, I think, maybe not technically longest but pretty much the longest. They have a fantastic brand following. And they have this wonderful delivery method, I guess, is a good way of explaining it. So, our naivety at McLaren, when we were developing the MP4-12C, as a concept, we were fixated as pure racing car guys on lap time: is it quickest, lightest, fastest, does it get from A to B quickest? And so on. And the delivery process, when I arrived at Ferrari, was astounding. It was the opposite. So, they would do all of that technology and analysis even more so because the Italians love analysis, they love engineering and analysis, they engineer it to death. And then the sign-off process, they give the keys of the prototype to the test drivers – these silver-haired guys in sunglasses and they never take sunglasses off – and they drive off into the mountains, and you sit there and you hear them go off the hill, up into the hills. And they all go for coffee, and two hours later, they come back and say, “Not ready.”

Ed Bernardon: They don’t tell you what to change, they just hand you the keys.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, exactly. Hand you the keys, it’s not ready. And then two or three months later, you put them back in it, same guy goes off — if it’s not lunchtime or whatever — into the mountains again for two or three hours, comes back, “It’s ready. Sell it.” That’s it. And it was pure analog delivery of the emotion of driving the car. And it wasn’t the stiffest. It wasn’t the engine installation. It was completely organic. So, it was a really interesting element that I’ve never seen in any other car. It was all about what it meant as a beast, and a lot of that was the engine. So, a lot of that is how the engine drives. It was just the organics of how it all got delivered as a package, I’ve never seen anywhere. So, it was a fantastic experience from that point of view.

Ed Bernardon: So, you’re talking about passion and emotion that you get when you’re driving your Ferrari through the mountains of Italy, with a V12 screaming in front of you or behind you. And now you’re making an electric drive truck. So, where’s the emotion?

Ben Scott-Geddes: I guess my journey in sports cars has kind of reached the end of where else would you go. Everybody wanted to apply for GT racing, again at Ferrari, and Ferrari is now winning every Le Mans race they enter in their class. And I don’t think you’d go anywhere else. And then towards the end of my Ferrari time, I started thinking about this mission; what the change in drive terrain or that kind of stuff meant, what the future of cars meant, what the future of mobility meant. So, I think it was that kind of emotional moment in career that you go, “Actually. This mission is got to be done.” This ability to go off-grid and counteract this kind of weird shift in the automotive industry, this pure EV fleet point of view where everyone’s buying these products, which kind of don’t really now do what they think they were going to do. People own cars in different ways now. People don’t need cars, people need transport.

Ed Bernardon: I looked at some clips from Mack’s Discovery Channel series and you’ve got these vehicles going through minus 60 degrees snow and ice, and then you’re in the desert, and then you’re stuck in the mud, in the jungle, on and on. And certainly the ability to make a vehicle that can survive all those different conditions, and plus do it in a sustainable way, is passionate and emotional nonetheless. Although it’s probably hard to compare that to driving a V12 Ferrari in the Alps or in Italy somewhere but it’s a different kind of emotion but certainly powerful.

Ben Scott-Geddes: There’s this kind of moral point to it too. There is a morality to it; producing these products which do what they do. And I don’t know if I told you stories. I was passing Gordon’s factory, still down in Shalford, with the prototype Pioneer on the trailer. And I rang him up and I said, “I was going to show you the car.” And he said, “Yeah, okay.” So I met up with him in the car park, and he was looking at the car and he’s just commenting on it. And I said, “So, come on, Gordon, we’re going green, you gotta go green.” And Gordon said, “Oh, we’ve gone green as well,” and he’s referring to his T-50, he said, “We’re using a four-liter V12 this time.” It’s like, “Hang on a second.” So, I think there is a morality point to it, I think.

Ed Bernardon: Well, let’s talk a little bit about the actual Pioneer itself, just to give our listeners an idea. How does it compare, say, to a Hummer or a comparable internal combustion engine driven or electric truck that can conduct the same type of mission that the Pioneer conducts? Length, size, weight, power, all these things. How is it different?

Ben Scott-Geddes: In the UK here, there’s a gatekeeper package that makes it drivable on UK roads, which are obviously small compared to the States and so on. So, it’s got to be smaller than a transit van, which is like a panel van like a builder’s van. So, it’s no wider than two meters, and it’s about five meters long, and it can get into car parks, there’s got to be less than a height of a guy, 1.8 meters or something. It’s still nominally drivable on a public road. So, it’s quite small, it’s quite narrow in relative terms, especially to an H1 Hummer and a lot of US trucks. And then as we’re saying, with the weight-wise, if we keep all these elements and idealize all that, we’re getting down to some one and a half tonnes if we can with all the choices we made. So, it’s the same size as a truck, if you like, but it’s a one-and-a-half-ton vehicle.

Ed Bernardon: And it can carry a lot more.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Well, what you get, we followed the only benchmark performance statistics you’ve got to achieve fundamentally or kind of a military vehicle specifications. So, the thing that defines the power you need in that vehicle way is this hill climb – so, 45% or 60% hillclimb. So, that defines what power you get. And then with electric motors, you get a kind of an excess of power and torque, so you got nominally 700 newton/meters of torque, which is a byproduct, if you like, of the size of motor you need to do the job. So, you get a very powerful, lightweight vehicle, kind of for free, but that’s what you get. And we’ve spoken about the sizing of the power, that’s the power application to the road. And then the energy generation, we talked about that in the size of the generator and that kind of stuff.

Ed Bernardon: If you compare it to an H1 Hummer, you’re two-thirds the weight, but yet, you can carry 50% more, which is amazing because the vehicle itself is such lightweight. Why haul around a heavy vehicle and a bunch of batteries? And that lightweight really makes that possible, which in turn results in much better fuel economy.

Ben Scott-Geddes: I guess, the analogy would be a very heavy man and the size his legs need to be. So, we’ve got the similar-sized legs because the legs of the wishbones and the suspension are kind of similarly sized, if you like. Structures, yeah, but the structure to carry the mass around that can be minimized. So, you’ve got a similar capability in load carrying from a strength point of view with the ability that the different price breaks that these vehicles are going to be much more expensive than an H1 Hummer, which is a production volume vehicle. So, we’re applying a “less is more” materials technology concept of “you need less of a higher performance material doing a job than you need of a lower performance material.” So, to reduce cost, let’s say let’s make it out of a softer steel or whatever, but you’d need more of it to do the same job. So, we’re using that sort of concept. So, we’re saving weight by materials application where we can as well.

Ed Bernardon: A Hummer is not known for its miles-per-gallon, which I think is around 10-12 or something like that, at least the H1 was the original. What do you estimate your miles-per-gallon are for the Pioneer?

Ben Scott-Geddes: It’s very difficult. So, on the highway, it’s easier because you know what the demands of a highway road are, but what we don’t know yet is how much regenerative braking we can use in it or regain on it. So, it’s anywhere between I think 50 to 100 miles per gallon we get somewhere in that sense.

Ed Bernardon: And that helps with range as well, which is key at making that big trek where there are no gas stations or charging stations. I think one of the most unique things about the Pioneer is the fact its body panels are made from a leather-like material. Why would you use a leather-like material on the body instead of metal like almost every other car on Earth?

Ben Scott-Geddes: The main starting point is that until I went to Italy, I’ve never done anything other than the plastic car. So, we’re using fabric-reinforced composite body panels. Then the second element is because we’ve got a relatively low top speed of 80 miles an hour, maximum, and a cruising speed of about 60 – we are dipping under that threshold of aerodynamic drag issues and aerodynamic loading on the body. So we can afford to have a fabric body. Coming in from another point of view, if you’re in extreme environments like extreme hot or extreme cold temperatures, the last thing you want to do is sit in a metal box because the metal is so conductive.

Ed Bernardon: Oh, like a breathable fabric, almost like a running suit or something?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, so what you get nowadays is fantastic fabric technology. So you get breathable, waterproof, windproof, washable fabric systems and technologies that we can apply. Similar to sort of high-class, high-end walking boots. So, they’re completely dry, they’re breathable, a Goretex system allows moisture to wick out of the vehicle, and so on. So, car, traditional metal boxes are a pain in the ass when it comes to HVAC because you’ve got to keep them dry, they’re always getting condensation. So, all of that, with a breathable insulated body, reduces the load on the heating and ventilation. So, you don’t need as much heating or as much cooling systems in the car to compensate for the body. So, we got to even get a benefit out of that because you don’t need a bigger system.

Ed Bernardon: So, you could be as comfortable in the Pioneer as your feet would be in a high-end hiking boot.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, with a fraction of carrying the weight. You don’t need steel toecap bits or whatever.

Ed Bernardon: And these types of materials are also more impervious to intrusion by sharp objects, things like that?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Well, they can be. So, we’ve got, again, with fabrics, you’ve got an ultimate choice. And it’s a composite, so you can layer in different ways, it’s insulative. So, we’ve got aramids, Dyneemas, we got all sorts of stuff that we can deploy around the different places of the car that they’re likely to get punctured or scraped. They don’t dent. And you can also remove them pretty easily if you don’t need to carry them in position. So, the doors, for example, can either be a sort of a gate door bar with a tarpaulin you can pull over and stretch to keep the water if it starts to rain.

Ed Bernardon: And I can change colors overnight.

Ben Scott-Geddes: You can change colors, yeah.

Ed Bernardon: Ship the new car body in a box, sounds like.

Ben Scott-Geddes: It’s not super novel. I think it’s probably how they started putting roofs on cars back in the early ‘20s.

Ed Bernardon: Well, it’s a canvas. Instead of just canvas top, it’s canvas all the way around or a special kind of canvas at least. Another interesting feature, which comes into the whole area of how reconfigurable a vehicle like this has to be because it’s going to be doing different things at different times. But it’s the ability of being able to convert the gas tank into a water tank so you can carry extra water. And I believe that the idea for that was actually born in the racing world.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, so back in the day, as we were saying. So, Le Mans particularly is won or lost normally, in the number of times you’ve got to stop. Because you’ve got to stop 20-odd times to get to the end of the race because you’ve got to control the fuel tank size. Instead of allowing you to physically pump fuel under pressure, under mechanical pressure, into the tanks to do — which is what they used to do in Formula One — a super high-speed fuel change. You were restricted to having like a dump can.

Ed Bernardon: Just gravity is the only thing that can push the fuel in.

Ben Scott-Geddes: So, what you need to do is you need to design the filler neck to be as restriction-free as possible to fill up the tank as quick as you could.

Ed Bernardon: Because the more time you spend fueling the car, the less time you’re out on the track gaining more miles.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Exactly. And you weren’t allowed to do anything else to the car; the driver to get out, you’d refuel it. You couldn’t touch the car whilst you were refueling it, so you can’t do anything else to it whilst you’re in the pit. There might have been an occasion where the electric pumps in the fuel tank might have overrun a little bit on the last lap and actually sucked vacuum into the bag tank, which for some reason some cars — ours particularly — used to fill up with gravity with a vacuum assist, which wasn’t necessarily in the rules but that was what happened. And ever since then, we’ve been looking at ways of getting fuel in and out of big bag tanks efficiently, and one way was to have a separate bladder inside the tank which you could inflate to excavate the tank or vice versa. Push the gas out so you make sure you get every last drop before you come into the pits, that kind of stuff. So, what that means is the tanks we got at the moment in the Pioneer have got an internal bag, which can either be filled with water, whilst the fuel tank is still holding the fuel, so you can have as much water in it as you want. Because there’s a freshwater issue in the car, and rather than having to carry freshwater as well, as you fill it up, you can use the space you’ve got inside the tank. And then the other issue you’ve got with EVs these days, and especially off-road EVs and trucks and so on is that they tend to package, they have to keep the air or keep the water out of all the battery packs and the battery system. So, they tend to have a lot of air in them, so they tend to float a bit. So you struggle to get traction on weighting so we can fill it up with water instead.

Ed Bernardon: So, that’s maybe a little bit of a downside then of making it too lightweight; you float across the rivers instead of actually staying in contact with the bottom of it.

Ben Scott-Geddes: It is, yeah. So, you do need to do something to get it to sink.

Ed Bernardon: Speaking of EVs, we’re talking about minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone knows that batteries and electric cars don’t like extremely cold temperatures. Did you have to do anything special with the batteries to make them survive in conditions like this?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Again, because of our volume choice and our extreme choices we’ve got, and the nice thing is we’re not in a mileage race with other competitors’ products. So, we’ve chosen a battery technology — titanium lithium oxide — which is not as popular with the OEMs making cars, making pure EVs because it’s less efficient than a lithium-ion system. And then with that is, it’s preferred by bus fleets and ships and ferries and that kind of stuff. So, electric vehicle ferries are a bit popular now because it has primarily no thermal runaway condition. So, it’s very, very safe, it doesn’t catch fire. And it also has an incredibly low storage temperature and low usage temperature. So, it goes down to minus 40, I think, minus 60 before it starts to get affected, and you can store it at minus 80 without being affected. And it has a very high discharge rate and so on, so it’s perfect. It’s just a bit heavier than the current favorite technology or the class-leading technology for energy density, which also means it’s available. Because that’s another issue these days, which has been our biggest issue of delivering an electric —

Ed Bernardon: Finding the components you need.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, you’ve got to do what you can physically get hold off because the world is being sucked dry of electronics components at the moment for the automotive industry and other forms of transport. So, it’s a crazy time.

Ed Bernardon: Well, the vehicle, what you can do with it is so exciting. When can I buy one? And what’s it going to cost me?

Ben Scott-Geddes: We’re currently under development for the production vehicle. You can have one in September, October if you really want one. And we’re planning to give ones and twos to our users, that sort of user experience guys first of all. So, we’re planning about 12 cars where we’re building them to spec for Amazon protection, rainforest protection, vaccine delivery, Antarctic exploration, and a few other key user groups to do evaluation vehicles to tune the development of those vehicles. And primarily, we’re focusing on business to business, so we’re selling to businesses using these vehicles. We’ve had quite a lot of interest from individuals wanting these vehicles for their own expeditions they want to go on. There’s a guy who wants to tow this fantastic off-road trailer. He’s going to go. I don’t think he’ll ever come back. He’s got this fantastic trailer. So, he wants sort of an efficient tow vehicle. So, that’s the sort of timescales, towards the end of this year, they’ll be available around, and we’re talking about small batch production in the following year because there’s no tooling. So, there’s no body tooling, there’s no body solutions to tool up, and so on. It’s a lightweight tubular frame with composite panels — the tooling development and initiation production setup is very, very minimal compared to any other production vehicle.

Ed Bernardon: Rough idea on the price? Is that something you could tell us?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, so they’re going to be around about 200,000 UK pounds plus taxes, I guess, which is kind of reflective these days. I mean, if you want to talk about EVs, not from a volume solution point of view when you’re talking about the Rivians and Humvees and these other kind of products, but a specific task-related vehicle.

Ed Bernardon: Does it come with a full-size spare?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Maybe not, because so far, we currently run the car with no air in the tires. So, we have no air in the tires because it’s a truck tire and the sidewalls are so stiff that we don’t need to run air in the tire, so it’s effective like a run flat. And we haven’t come close to wearing a tire out yet or even breaking one or tearing one because the tires are over-engineered, far over-engineered for the car so far. So, yeah, no spare so far.

Ed Bernardon: When do you think I’ll be able to buy that first ticket for my “pole to pole, back to pole on the other side of the Earth” trip?

Ben Scott-Geddes: You have to ask Mack.

Ed Bernardon: There’s no sign-up list yet on your website for that?

Ben Scott-Geddes: No, not yet. It’s going to probably be a separate undertaking as well. But that’s being worked out as well really, because that’s about a two-year planning, according to Mack — it takes a long time to plan those sorts of things. And mainly because of border crossings. So, it’s not necessarily the vehicle, it’s the people you’ve got to talk to as you go past.

Ed Bernardon: Not to mention, maybe having a driver’s license or the right license plate or who knows what as you go through countries here. So, one last question about the Fering and the Pioneer. So, where do you go from here? Soon, you’ll get hopefully a dozen of these out there into the good hands of people that are doing great things for the climate and delivering vaccines, that kind of thing. Eventually, there’ll be people out there doing these tours for us. What about after that? Do you see a Pioneer 2? What’s in the future?

Ben Scott-Geddes: So, our game is we want to try and get a common bottom half backbone or structure, which can satisfy these off-grid utility challenges, and jobs that the vehicle has got to do. But one of the things we’ve realized, which is quite interesting is that in producing an axle — so you have an axle on either end, both of them are steering because it’s the same axle, so you’ve got the same axle, front and rear. And because both of them potentially steer, you can push these axles right to the corner of your box so that you’re not limited to your wheelbase from a turning circle point of view. So, you can push them right to the box. They’ve got plenty of travel to give you the ground clearance on the breakover angle in the middle, so you can push it right to the corner of this five-meter box, which means that the box in between those axles then becomes all of your living space and your cargo space you have available. So, you then have a concept where you’re looking at the vehicle and you’re thinking, unlike a traditional transport vehicle where you’re carrying loads above the rear axle because of the way you have to carry those, you can carry all the loads and all the cargo in between the axles. So, you get a different configuration and package for a vehicle. Depending on what sort of certification you’ve got to comply with on visibility like that stuff. But you’ve actually got another weird vehicle that you can sit in the middle of. So, it gives you these different package options for vehicles.

Ed Bernardon: So, what kind of weird vehicles do you envision?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Well, it would be, imagine a cargo vehicle that you load purely from the side; you don’t have to load from the back or whatever. It’s got all the cargo in the middle. And the driver is sitting in the middle of the front wheels. So, you get these different kinds of vehicles. I don’t know what the usage cases for those would be, but we’re always going to be effective. And it might even change the way you approach your mobility questions in the future. And we’ve done similar tests; how you get in and out? How are you going to use this thing?

Ed Bernardon: In what terrain all this is going to happen on?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, where are you going to go and do it?

Ed Bernardon: Ben, thank you so much for opening up our eyes to what you can do with electric drive vehicles. It’s been great having you on the Future Car podcast.

Ben Scott-Geddes: It’s been a pleasure, yeah.

Ed Bernardon: Well, listen, before we let you go, as always, we want to have our rapid-fire section; a series of quick, quick questions that you can answer – quick, quick answers, however long you want. But if you want, you can pass. Are you ready to go?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, I’m ready when you are.

Ed Bernardon: What’s the first car you ever bought or owned?

Ben Scott-Geddes: So, the first car I’ve ever bought was a Saab ‘96 V4. And I’ve had a love affair with that car ever since. So, it was a very successful rally car. You probably don’t remember— You remember this, you must remember this, 1970s Saab campaigning in World Rally car champion back in the days. So, this little V4, little bubble car, very lightweight, large-diameter tires, large 15-inch wheels, great traction front-wheel drive, eventually driven by Scandinavians very successfully until they got out horse-powered. So, basically, when Ford Escorts go over 200 horsepower. The last one of my own was Stig Blomqvist 1972 rally winning or whatever. Saab ‘96 works rally car.

Ed Bernardon: Did you pass your driver’s test on the first try?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yep. Pretty much on my 17th birthday.

Ed Bernardon: What’s the fastest you’ve ever driven a car on the street? Not on a racetrack but on a highway street.

Ben Scott-Geddes: It was probably about 180-something miles an hour.

Ed Bernardon: 180 miles per hour?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, it was in the T1 on the M3 between Basingstoke and Winchester.

Ed Bernardon: That might be a record. I’m gonna have to check but that might be a record for the Future Car podcast guests. What’s the fastest you drove on the track you think when you were in the T1?

Ben Scott-Geddes: I don’t know. Probably about the same speed, probably 190.

Ed Bernardon: It doesn’t care where it is.

Ben Scott-Geddes: No, I wasn’t looking.

Ed Bernardon: In this world of autonomous cars, we like to talk about the living room on wheels. So, imagine, fully autonomous, you can do anything you want when you’re inside the car, you’re taking about a five-hour trip. You want to enjoy those five hours as much as you want in your vehicle. What would you have in your living room on wheels?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Can I say Uma Thurman?

Ed Bernardon: Well, the next question was “What person, living or not, would you want there?” So, I guess, you’ve answered two questions in one. I hope your wife is not listening.

Ben Scott-Geddes: No, I know, it is fine. No, I think I’m allowed that.

Ed Bernardon: You’re allowed that? It’s a podcast license, I guess. Greatest talent, not related to anything you do at work.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Okay, that’s a difficult one, that’s a really hard one because I’ve been so lucky. Like you probably have, I don’t feel like I’ve had a day of work in my life.

Ed Bernardon: I guess the first Pioneer was actually made in your garage.

Ben Scott-Geddes: That’s right, yeah. I love it. I mean, if you get paid for it, even better. I do cars design and engineering, that’s not work. And I think I’ve brought every talent I possibly got into that. I like drawing. I’ve sold live drawings.

Ed Bernardon: If you could have an answer to any question, what would that question be?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Well, apart from what the lottery tickets are the next Saturday. That’s too hard that one as well.

Ed Bernardon: If you could magically invent one thing, what would it be?

Ben Scott-Geddes: So, a time machine.

Ed Bernardon: Uninvent one thing, what would that be?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Probably something like the plow or something. One of those inventions that just really kicked off there being too many people everywhere. “The success of the human race” type invention.

Ed Bernardon: What’s your favorite F1, Formula One team of all time?

Ben Scott-Geddes: I joined McLaren when Senna was still there. So, Senna and Burger. So, I was a massive Senna fan and McLaren fan at the time. And then he went off and died. But I think it’s probably Ferrari having met them all and worked with them recently.

Ed Bernardon: Who do you think is the greatest F1 driver of all time?

Ben Scott-Geddes: Senna. Definitely not Schumacher.

Ed Bernardon: You want to tell us why you think that? That was a strong “blah” you threw in there.

Ben Scott-Geddes: I think it was a bit too dastardly really, dastardly and a Red Baron type driver.

Ed Bernardon: Here’s the last question: Tell us something about yourself that would surprise your friends and family, something they don’t know.

Ben Scott-Geddes: I’m afraid it’s really boring, there isn’t anything. I’m sorry. I wish there was but there’s nothing, no.

Ed Bernardon: Well, you can work on that before we have you back on the Future Car podcast.

Ben Scott-Geddes: Yeah, definitely.

Ed Bernardon: Well, listen, Ben, thank you so much for a great conversation and, like I said, opening our eyes to what’s possible in the world of trucks. Thanks for being on the Future Car podcast.

Ben Scott-Geddes: It was a pleasure, Ed. Nice speaking to you again.

Ben Scott-Geddes - Guest, Founder Fering Technologies

Ben Scott-Geddes – Guest, Founder Fering Technologies

Ben is the founder of Fering Technologies. He has devoted his career to whole-vehicle design, predominantly in motorsports and supercar design and is the brains behind the Fering Pioneer. He previously worked for Ferrari and McLaren, and was involved in the development of the Caparo T1 project. He has a Bachelor of Science from City, University of London.

Ed Bernardon, Vice President Strategic Automotive Intiatives - Host

Ed Bernardon, Vice President Strategic Automotive Intiatives – Host

Ed is currently VP Strategic Automotive Initiatives at Siemens Digital Industries Software. Responsibilities include strategic planning in areas of design of autonomous/connected vehicles, lightweight automotive structures and interiors. He is also responsible for Future Car thought leadership including hosting the Future Car Podcast and development of cross divisional projects. Previously a founding member of VISTAGY that developed light-weight structure and automotive interior design software acquired by Siemens in 2011.  Ed holds an M.S.M.E. from MIT, B.S.M.E. from Purdue, and MBA from Butler.

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On the Move: A Siemens Automotive Podcast Podcast

On the Move: A Siemens Automotive Podcast

The automotive and transportation industries are in the middle of a transformation in how vehicles are designed, made, and sold. Driven by an influx of new technologies, consumer demands, environmental pressures, and a changing workforce in factories and offices, automotive companies are pushing to reinvent fundamental aspects of their businesses. This includes developing more advanced and capable vehicles, identifying new revenue sources, improving customer experiences, and changing the ways in which features and functionality are built into vehicles.

Welcome to On the Move, a podcast from Siemens Digital Industries Software that will dive into the acceleration of mobility innovation amid unprecedented change in the automotive and transportation industries. Join hosts Nand Kochhar, VP of Automotive and Transportation, and Conor Peick, Automotive and Transportation Writer, as they dive into the shifting automotive landscape with expert guests from Siemens and around the industry. Tune in to learn about modern automotive design and engineering challenges, how software and electronics have grown in use and importance, and where the industries might be heading in the future.

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Edward Bernardon

Ed has over 25 years experience as an entrepreneur and executive in industries related to software, design, and automated manufacturing in a variety of industries including automotive, aerospace, and apparel. Primary roles have been as a sales and business development executive in early stage startups that have grown to become global in scope. Ed is currently Vice President of Strategic Automotive Initiatives at Siemens Specialized Engineering Software. In this role, he is responsible for strategic planning, business development, and making initial sales of new products to market leading companies. The primary focus of these efforts has been in the areas of design and manufacture of lightweight automotive structures and transportation interiors. Prior to Siemens, he was the third principal member and Vice President of Sales for VISTAGY that, without any outside funding, developed industry leading software for design and manufacturing of light-weight composite parts. Initially the sole sales person, he expanded sales to a global organization with direct and channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Ed was a key member of the executive team during the global expansion of VISTAGY and the transaction of Siemens acquisition in 2011. Prior to VISTAGY, Ed directed the Automation and Design Technology Group at the MIT Draper Laboratory, developing manufacturing processes, robotics, and complementary design software for composites, automotive and textile applications. Projects included design of a composite car body, FRTM and preform pick/place for composites fabrication, as well as robotic equipment for the manufacture of men’s suits, blue jeans, sweatpants and other apparel. Ed holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, and an MBA from Butler University. He also has numerous patents in the area of high volume automated composite manufacturing systems, robotics and laser technologies.

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/podcasts/on-the-move/sustainable-ev-global-circumnavigation-with-ben-scott-geddes-fering-technologies-part-2/