Daniel Bleakley joins The Driven as lead reporter

Daniel Bleakley, a mechanical engineer and climate and energy campaigner behind the “Coal Miners Driving Teslas” YouTube series, has joined The Driven as lead reporter.

Daniel, who owns a Model 3 electric sedan, has a strong interest in electrification and public policy and launched his “Coal Miners Driving Teslas” series in response to the misunderstandings and misinformation in Australian media and public policy areas on electric vehicles.

The YouTube series included climate and energy conversations with coal miners, tradespeople, celebrities and politicians while driving an EV. The series went for 12 months and included 87 episodes filmed in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

The series received millions of views on social media and was featured by major media outlets.

In 2022, Daniel completed a research fellowship with think tank The Australia Institute in Canberra. His work included interviewing political candidates about their climate policies in the lead up to the federal election as well as a research project comparing Norwegian and Australian oil and gas tax revenue. He has also written articles for Michael West Media.

Daniel believes Australia’s strong climate and clean technology community has been instrumental in driving the recent positive cultural and political shift in Australia, and believes the world is at the beginning of a clean technology industrial revolution.

The Driven, and its owners EV Media, are delighted to have Daniel join and lead the reporting team, building on the extraordinary readership that has been developed since the launch of the publication in 2018. His first article is here: The Rise of the Machines: Tesla drives 50km autonomously through heavy LA traffic

We especially look forward to his multi-media work and his insights, reporting and analysis of the EV revolution in Australia and overseas.

The Driven – a sister site to the renewables and grid focused RenewEconomy – attracted more than 30 million page views over the last two calendar years and will continue to expand its coverage of the EV transition, including new models, technologies, and consumer stories.

Daniel studied engineering at Queensland University of Technology and worked as a mechanical engineer in hydraulic equipment design, materials handling and on a research and development project in Scotland’s oil industry. He also worked in Germany for a hydraulic equipment manufacturing company supplying Germany’s automotive industry.

Daniel has closely followed climate science, renewable energy, electric vehicle technology and the politics of climate change for 20 years, and in 2019 was a full-time climate activist with actions including a 10 day hunger strike on the steps of Victoria’s parliament and gluing his hand to an office window in protest at a company’s involvement with the Adani coal mine.

You can read his first article for The Driven here: The Rise of the Machines: Tesla drives 50km autonomously through heavy LA traffic