Three independent passes over the same deliverable, and what they concluded.
Documents audited:
livrables/verdal-wp1-market.pptx ·
livrables/verdal-wp1-market-model.xlsx
Date: 27 July 2026 · Engagement:
VG-STRAT-2026-07 · Nothing was modified.
The three passes: | Level | Method | Report |
|---|---|---| | L1 | Source verification — 47 claims
traced to primary, two independent web-research streams |
wp1-audit-L1-source-verification.md | | L2
| Internal audit — isolated Cowork subagent, dynamic grid, model rebuilt
from its 30 inputs | wp1-audit-L2-internal-audit.md | |
L3 | Dual external audit — Claude Fable
5 + GPT-5.6 Sol, identical prompt, neither
seeing the other | wp1-audit-L3-dual-external-audit.md
|
The model is the strongest artefact in this engagement and the deck is currently writing cheques it does not cash. All three passes independently reach the same shape of verdict: the workbook's honesty discipline is at or near best practice — every input carries a value, unit, confidence and source, and it names in capitals the two cells that would flip the answer — while the deck drops that discipline, overstates several claims the model itself disclaims, and puts two exhibits on a Board page that no cell in the model computes. Not one of the defects requires new research. What does require judgement is the €25bn perimeter, which deck and model currently answer differently, and the Savills benchmark, which the L1 pass has now settled at primary and which moves further than expected.
Scores: L2 internal 66/95 (3.5/5) · Fable 5 3.5/5, verdict fixable in a day · GPT-5.6 Sol 2.2/5, verdict HOLD.
Read at primary: Savills Research, Electric Vehicle Charging:
Maximising Opportunity, UK Commercial, Autumn
2024. £3,000-5,000 per bay per annum, or 5% revenue
share, or 20% profit share, 30-year lease, CPI review.
CONTEXT.md open decision #4 closes: upgrade
Assumptions!F37 from Probable / contested to
Verified.
Three qualifiers, and they do not all cut the same way:
F37 says
"€13-22m". £3,000-5,000 × 4,400 bays = **£**13.2-22.0m =
€15.4-25.7m at £1 = €1.17. Slide 11's "2-3x our €1,500"
is 2.3-3.9x.IEA's 4.3% is IEA-"Europe" (EU-27 plus UK, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye and the non-EU Balkans) measured against final electricity consumption. Ember's 2,790 TWh is EU-27 gross generation. The two errors run in opposite directions and do not cancel predictably. This is the calculation that tests the Board's figure, and it is the one a Board member with an energy background will catch. Cheap to fix — align both terms on one perimeter — and nothing in the argument breaks, because the funnel is already declared a bounding exercise.
The one that matters most: the ACEA/McKinsey Masterplan is not "of the same order" as Société Générale's €30bn. ACEA publishes €8bn a year for public charging — roughly €70-80bn cumulative to 2030, more than double. The deck smooths a factor-of-two contradiction between two of its own sources. That is the single place in the package where a contradiction was smoothed rather than presented, and it is the exact behaviour the client said it would score against. Also: the Grand View 2030 figure is no longer reproducible at source; Market Data Forecast's US25.4bnbelongstoits * charger * reportwhileits * chargingstation * reportsaysUS671bn for the same year and continent; the ADAC primary could not be reached at all; ANFAC publishes 746,510, not 0.69m; Eurostat's Italy figure contradicts Eurostat's own published ranking.
One thing got stronger, not weaker. The McKinsey mobility-finance report is verified at primary — 11 October 2023, five countries (FR, DE, IT, ES, UK), "about €25 billion of new annual revenue for mobility-finance providers by 2030". And it contains a sentence the deck does not use: "EV charging infrastructure… will remain a relatively niche segment, contributing about 1 percent of total 2030 revenue." If that is the Board's source, then even inside the €25bn, charging is about €250m — and it is charging finance, not charging service revenue. The falsification test also held: no published source cleanly produces "European EV charging market, €25bn, 2030".
Ranked by risk, with the number of independent passes that found each. None requires new research.
| # | Defect | Found by | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Slide 6's bridge step "Cost of delivery −40.5" is wrong. €40.4m is the operator's retained 85% under a revenue share. The actual cost of delivery is €70.0m on slide 12 of the same deck. | L2, Fable | Re-label "Operator's 85% share, −40.4", or split the last
leg into two steps. Add tab 3!D26 so it is live. |
| 2 | Deck and model give different answers to the mandate
question. Slide 4 and tab 4!C5 put €25bn at level
1 (capex); tab 1!A20 puts it at level 2 (plug
revenue). |
L2, GPT | Decision required — see D-1 below. |
| 3 | Slide 13's "Charger spec" and "Bays per charger" bars exist
in no model cell. F17 itself admits it. The deck
promises on slide 14 that the grid "is live, not a picture" — slide 13
is a picture. |
L2, Fable, GPT | Build them as live formulas in tab 5 section C, or
strip the two bars. |
| 4 | Slide 13's title is contradicted by slide 13's chart — "two equipment assumptions do", but only charger spec crosses zero (+0.6); bays per charger stops at −2.8. | L2 | Retitle. |
| 5 | Slide 14's kicker is contradicted by its own last column — "more bays make the loss larger" is false at 160 kWh/bay/day, where 8 bays gives +3.2. | L2, GPT | "Below break-even throughput more bays deepen the loss; only above about 160 kWh a bay a day does scale help." |
| 6 | The deck's headline prize (€7m) contradicts the model's own
definition of the prize (€0.537m) — and tab 3!D25
explicitly warns against exactly the comparison slide 2 makes. |
L2 | Decision required — see D-2. |
| 7 | FX error on the Savills range and the "2-3x" multiple. | L1, L2, Fable, GPT | Correct to €15.4-25.7m and 2.3-3.9x; state the rate. |
| 8 | Slide 8's step percentages and slide 6's bridge steps are computed from rounded display labels, not from cells. −69.4% and −42.3% should be −70.0% and −43.0%. | L2, Fable | Recompute from unrounded cells, or show the multiplier (×30%, ×22%) instead of a spurious-precision delta. |
| 9 | Slide 8 credits the IEA with the 30% public split that the model says nobody publishes. | L2, Fable | "The IEA sources the 4.3% EV share; the 70/30 public split is commonly cited but is not published as a kWh split — it is our first soft step." |
| 10 | Slides 15 and 16 say the lease fee is "the only" unsupplied Verdal figure — the same slide lists two more (bay counts, energy contract). | Fable | Delete "only"; say three. |
| 11 | The ACEA "same order" sentence smooths a factor-of-two contradiction between two of the deck's own sources. | L1 | Present both constructions and say they disagree. |
| 12 | Slide 2's "on a destination-grade 75 kW unit it is reached today" is an overclaim — the model shows about break-even at 2030 modelled throughput on an unsourced assumption. | Fable, GPT | "…break-even at base-case 2030 throughput, on an unverified throughput assumption." |
| # | Item | Found by |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Put the Verified / Probable / Hypothesis taxonomy on the slides. It is applied rigorously in the model, appears on zero slides, and is the client's explicit scoring criterion. | L2, Fable, GPT |
| 14 | Give the lease-fee flip condition a visual on slide
11, not a bullet. A44 says the recommendation
flips; the headline still asserts the revenue share wins. |
L2, Fable, GPT |
| 15 | Solve the break-even against the whole estate — 162.2 kWh/bay/day, not the DC-only 159.8. The model's own grid is still −€0.6m at 160. | L2, GPT |
| 16 | Repair or drop the three market-research citations (Grand View not reproducible; Market Data Forecast wrong report of two that differ 26×; Meticulous horizon 2032 not 2030). | L1 |
| 17 | Fix the six contradicted source claims and move the five confidence labels (DC price Verified→Probable; AC price Probable→Hypothesis; electricity Verified→Probable; 2,790 TWh re-labelled; Savills Probable→Verified). | L1 |
| 18 | Disclose or decompose the possible network-charge double count. Eurostat's band IC price already includes network charges; the model adds €0.04/kWh of capacity charges on top — €3.37m a year. Also state the band basis (84.3 GWh ÷ 1,100 sites = 76.6 MWh/site, below band IC's 500 MWh floor unless charging shares the store meter). | GPT |
| 19 | State that site eligibility has not been screened. One line on slide 9 and a hand-off to WP3. Savills' own qualifiers make this material. | GPT, L1 |
| 20 | Deliver methodology Step 5 — a bounded range on the
headline, not a point estimate. Lease €6.6m base / €15.4-25.7m at
Savills; revenue share €4.8m at 10% to €11.9m at 25%; operate −€22.4m to
+€0.7m. Build as tab 5 section D. |
L2, GPT |
| 21 | Align the funnel's opening multiplication on one perimeter (IEA-Europe consumption, or an EU-27 EV share). | L1, GPT |
| 22 | Scope and cost the pilot so 8 September is a real budget decision. | Fable, GPT |
| 23 | Add the like-for-like ratio to slide 4: €7.1m against €766m = 1/107th, alongside the 1/2,850th. Someone in the room will do that division. | L2 |
| 24 | Correct Assumptions!C24 — €0.19 is
presented as the Eurostat figure (€0.1837) with no stated reason for the
3.4% uplift. And Interpath's own footnote assumes €180,000 per charger,
not the €200,000 used — worth €1.8m a year. |
L1, L2 |
| 25 | Re-date and version the deck for the 8 September interim; the 27 July build date precedes the 4 August kick-off. | Fable, GPT |
Slide 5 as a table with currencies and horizon years visible · slide
2 from six supports to three or four · a fourth section divider before
slides 15-16 (they currently sit under "What a site host actually
earns") · slide 14's missing column-axis unit, restored from
tab 5!A18 · slide 17 finished with the doc ID and a
leave-behind recap · end on a governing recommendation rather than a
list of requests · correct slide 4's level-4 row (under self-operation
Verdal is operator and host) · add the two Tier-1 cross-checks
L1 surfaced: Fastned's own published supermarket business
case (40 sessions/station/day; max €252k revenue per station
against €1,417k for a motorway site) and Pod Point's Tesco
estate (£2,983 operating profit per site per year —
below the bottom of the Savills per-bay rent).
Everything above except these can be executed without you. These cannot.
The package currently holds two answers. Three routes:
tab 4!C5, and the SocGen/ACEA
constructions.tab 1!A20 and your own independently built €20.4bn.Recommendation: (c). It is the only one that is true today, the kick-off already committed to "present all candidates, assert none", and it is precisely what the client said it would score on. Both L2 and GPT-5.6 Sol independently reached the same conclusion.
€7.1m is the pool at Verdal's perimeter level. €0.537m is the
incremental prize over today's assumed lease, and it is what
tab 3!D25 calls "THE ACTUAL PRIZE" — and what the
methodology names as the comparison the Board paper fails to make.
They lead to different Board conversations. €0.5m is the more defensible number and the weaker headline; it may also make the case for WP2-WP6 harder to hold. Note that at the now-Verified Savills range the incremental prize is negative — today's lease would already be winning.
Recommendation: lead with the pool and the increment together, on the same line. "The pool at Verdal's level is €7.1m a year. The increment over today's lease is €0.5m — and on the only published benchmark it may be negative." That is one sentence and it removes the attack.
Four sub-questions, and they compound:
Recommendation: present both benchmarks with the qualifiers, and hold the recommendation. Show the flip as a scenario strip, say that the answer to the Board's own question — "is value being left on the table?" — may be no, and that the two agreements settle it. There is no third option that is both honest and useful; withholding a Verified benchmark you hold is worse than showing it with its limits.
The two external models scored the same package 3.5/5 and 2.2/5. The gap is not noise; it is two legitimate frames:
Recommendation: Fable's frame for WP1, with two of GPT's objections adopted now. NPV/IRR and country economics belong to WP3 and WP5 and should not be pulled forward. But the site-eligibility caveat costs one line and is corroborated by Savills' own qualifiers, and ending on a governing recommendation rather than a list of requests costs one slide. Take those two; defer the rest with the hand-off written down.
The deck currently says "WP1 must not rule out self-operation: WP2 chooses the spec, and it decides." Methodologically correct. To a Board it may read as a refusal to answer. The alternative is to state a conditional verdict — "on a highway-grade spec self-operation loses €22m; on a destination-grade spec it is roughly break-even; WP2 chooses, and that choice is the whole answer" — which is the same content with a spine.
Recommendation: the conditional verdict, and put the two specs side by side on slide 12 rather than in sequence across 12 and 13. The current sequencing lets a Board member conclude the −€22.4m is a straw man before slide 13 admits it.
It is now verified at primary and it is the sharpest piece of research in the deck — the report matches the figure, the currency and the year exactly and measures something else entirely. It is also the line most likely to cost Katrin Sommer political capital: "the Board paper cited the right number from the wrong report" will be heard as the Board confused an auto-loan report with charging, whatever the hedge on the next line.
Recommendation: keep the finding, delete the sentence. State the match, state what the report measures, state the 1%-of-revenue line, and end on the citation request. Never characterise the Board's citation.
The perimeter finding is stable, depends on no data-room item, and reverses the premise of a Board paper her Board wrote. Six weeks is a long time for a sponsor to be unaware of that. This is a relationship call, not an analytical one.
Per the asymmetric rule, these cannot be settled in this engagement folder:
If you want any of these to stick, take them to the firm workspace and say: "improve the consultancy: [rule]".
Worth recording, because it bounds the fix: