Costelloes EV returns to EV Rally Cymru for a third year, bringing back its Hyundai IONIQ 5 alongside new partners OurNet.Energy. Managing director David Costelloe discusses why showcasing EV driving in rural Wales is important in demonstrating that electric vehicles are practical beyond urban areas
This is the third year you are joining us on the EV Rally Cymru. What has made you decide to get involved again?
We're delighted to be returning for our third EV Rally Cymru. For Costelloes EV, the rally is a great opportunity to demonstrate what electric vehicles can actually do in the real world. Wales gives you a fantastic mixture of motorways, A-roads, rural routes and challenging terrain, so it provides a much more realistic demonstration of EV ownership than simply talking about range figures and charging times.
We also have a particularly strong connection with Wales. We're based just outside Wrexham in Saltney, Flintshire, right on the Welsh border, and supporting the transition to electric transport in Wales is an important part of what we do.
We work closely with Wrexham Council, supporting its route towards Net Zero through the delivery, operation and continued development of EV charging infrastructure. We've also secured a long-term contract with Ceredigion Council, allowing us to support another Welsh local authority on a similar journey.
Having successfully completed and won the 2025 rally, we're looking forward to getting back out there in 2026.
Can you tell us about your team – who will be taking part and what vehicles will you be driving?
This year we're expanding the team, which we're really excited about.
Myself and fellow Costelloes EV founder and director Vickie Costelloe will once again be taking part in our 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 – the same car that successfully completed and won EV Rally Cymru last year.
Vickie and I are both passionate about the EV industry and have built Costelloes EV around helping drive the transition to electrification. Today, our projects range from domestic EV charging installations through to complex commercial and industrial fleet infrastructure, combining EV charging with the latest energy and intelligent-control technologies.
The IONIQ 5 is now five years old and has been used extensively, so bringing it back for another rally is a great opportunity to demonstrate the capability and longevity of an EV beyond the new-car experience. We're not arriving with a specially prepared or brand-new vehicle – this is an EV we've lived with, driven and relied upon for several years and which proved itself by winning the rally last year.
For 2026, we're also being joined by our partners at OurNet.Energy, who will enter a second vehicle as part of the team. John Granby and Debbie Ellis-Trower bring considerable experience from the EV sector, having previously worked with EO before moving into their current roles with OurNet.Energy.
Their focus today is particularly relevant to where the EV industry is heading: helping fleet operators transition to electric trucks and commercial vehicles without automatically resorting to costly grid upgrades.
So this year we have two vehicles and two businesses taking part, but very much one team. Costelloes EV and OurNet.Energy already work closely together, and EV Rally Cymru gives us an opportunity to take that partnership out on the road.
As much of Wales is rural, are there any aspects of the EV rally that you expect to be challenging? If so, how are you planning to address them?
Rural Wales is actually one of the reasons the rally is so valuable. There are inevitably areas where charging infrastructure is less concentrated, and longer distances between rapid charging locations mean a little more planning can sometimes be required.
But that's also an important part of the challenge. An EV shouldn't only be practical in major cities or along the motorway network. If we're serious about the transition to electric transport, the infrastructure needs to work for rural communities, businesses, visitors and commercial fleets too.
Our approach will be straightforward: sensible route planning, understanding where charging is available and using the vehicles' range efficiently. That's no different from the advice we'd give somebody undertaking a long journey in an EV for the first time.
The EV Rally is aiming to bust some EV myths and misinformation this year – is there a particular EV myth you would like to challenge on the rally?
One of the biggest myths we're encountering at the moment is that large commercial fleets and heavy goods vehicles can't be electrified without huge and costly grid upgrades.
From our own experience, that simply isn't true.
Working alongside our partners at OurNet.Energy, we have now delivered five sites for a major eHGV manufacturer, enabling high-powered DC charging for electric HGVs without requiring upgrades to the existing grid connections.
We've achieved this by looking beyond the traditional approach of simply asking the grid for more power. Instead, we combine solar PV, battery energy storage systems (BESS), bespoke intelligent energy-management software and smart high-powered DC charging to make much better use of the energy already available at each site.
The system intelligently manages when energy is generated, stored and released, balancing available grid capacity with renewable generation and battery storage to provide the high levels of power required for eHGV charging.
For us, this is where the conversation around EV infrastructure needs to go next. The question shouldn't always be, "How much more power can we get from the grid?" It should also be, "How intelligently can we use the power we already have?"
Grid capacity is undoubtedly a challenge, but it doesn't have to be a barrier to electrification. With the right combination of technologies and intelligent energy management, we're already demonstrating what's possible in the real world.
Some of the checkpoints will showcase innovation and clean energy – why is this important?
Because electrifying the vehicle is only one part of the transition.
As demand increases, particularly from commercial fleets and eHGVs, we also need to think about where that energy comes from and how efficiently we use it.
Technologies such as solar PV, battery energy storage, smart charging, intelligent software and AI integration allow us to make much better use of existing energy infrastructure and available grid capacity.
For us, that's what makes showcasing innovation during EV Rally Cymru so important. The transition isn't simply about replacing a petrol or diesel vehicle with an electric one. It's also about changing how we generate, store, manage and use energy to support those vehicles.
And finally, please tell us about Costelloes' future plans – any exciting developments on the horizon?
There's a lot happening across the business.
Alongside our work with Wrexham and Ceredigion Councils, we've expanded nationally and are now supporting Network Rail with the maintenance and support of its EV charging infrastructure across stations, car parks, depots and training facilities.
We're also supporting Network Rail's HomeStart drivers, installing EV charge points at employees' homes and integrating energy reimbursement through Allstar.
This allows drivers to predominantly charge their company vehicles overnight using lower-cost domestic electricity rather than relying on more expensive public charging. The electricity used for the company vehicle can then be reimbursed through the system, reducing administration for Network Rail while helping to lower overall fleet energy costs.
At the other end of the scale, we're continuing to develop commercial and industrial projects supporting the electrification of larger fleets and eHGVs.
Looking ahead, our focus is on joining all of these elements together – grid connections, renewable generation, battery storage, EV charging, maintenance, reimbursement and intelligent software – to make the transition to electric transport as practical and commercially viable as possible.
That could mean a single home charger for a fleet driver, managing a nationwide charging estate or providing the energy infrastructure required to charge electric HGVs.
The exciting part for us is that these aren't solutions we're talking about for some distant future. We're already delivering them today.