> There is no reason for VW to not build more, if the demand is there. If the demand is not there, then it can become a financial disaster.
The problem is that EVs are going to cannibalize the legacy auto industry. It takes far less people [1], far less parts (typical combustion engine has ~2k moving parts, a Tesla powertrain has ~17), just a much smaller supply chain overall [2] to deliver EVs. And these EVs will last much, much longer than your traditional combustion vehicles.
Legacy automakers are fighting over the smaller pie that will be left over, hence the handwringing. Innovator's Dilemma [3]. Governments should be looking at the auto industry the same way they look at coal: upskill those who will stay, transition out those who a redundant. It's quite worse than coal, actually. Coal only employs ~50k people in the US. The auto industry employs over 7 million.
Most of those factors are actually beneficial for the corporations however; less parts and people means less logistical overhead eating away at profits. The increase in reliability is a questionable loss too as most consumers dump their current car every 6 years regardless if it still works or not in their effort to keep up with the Joneses. Beside battery wear will put a hard limit on car lifespan anyway since those giant things are going to be the labor equivalent of an engine swap in order to replace.
The original model S could do a 90 second battery swap. Not sure about other Tesla models, but I sure hope they are still designed for easy battery replacement. I would guess they are as Elon Musk is hoping for the cars to eventually last a million miles.
They are no longer designed for replacement at that speed. That was designed to capture the full value of California ZEV credits, and is no longer necessary.
Will also be driven by demand. EVs are already cheaper to operate. If they are also cheaper to produce and support, then the alternative is not competitive.
The result is then just delayed by historic capital and reallocation.
Someone on reddit recently bought a new Tesla for $30,000 after incentives (not counting savings on gas, oil, brake pads, and other maintenance). Sure that is double the price of some bottom rung cars but $30k is pretty common these days.
Some of them are factories they remodel from ICE to EV, so those decrease the delta by 2. For example the Zwickau site that starts EV mass production on Nov 4 (but ramps up on EV and down on ICE over the next ~2 years until it's fully EV).
Apparently the same is true for 2 US factories, so that's 3 EV factories and -3 ICE factories.
Zuffenhausen is now also a mixed ICE/EV factory and EV production has already started there last month. (Porsche is no longer an independent company but merely a VW brand.)
According to [1] the entire VW group owns 61 plants worldwide. However this also includes motorcycle factories and plants which make various parts which are used by ICE and electric cars (i.e. metal casting, injection molding, gearboxes, etc.).
8 Factories are quite a lot when you think that VW has only 3 electric vehicles in the pipeline (id.3,id.crozz and id.buzz) and also does not own any battery manufacturing plant.
It's a very risky move for VW. Margins on ICEs are way higher and VW factory staff is way pricier than tesla's. They can't really burn cash the same way since going belly up would be way more devastating. That's why other big manufacturers like toyota are similarly cautious.
Tesla builds ~400,000 per year out of a single factory. If VW were producing 3.2 million/year by the end of 2022 that would seem like a lot to me.
Of course, if/when Tesla ever builds a European plant it may be much smaller than their current footprint. That isn't uncommon for Europe, so if I had to hazard a guess, the VW plants will average less than 400k/plant as well.
Even going from where they are to 2 million per year over the next few years would be a great accomplishment, though. And that certainly seems feasible, if not necessarily likely. ICE companies have an even worse track record than Tesla at keeping promises on electric vehicle schedules.
The Zwickau factory I mentioned a couple of times produces 297k ICE cars a year (1350 a day, 220 days a year), and aims for 330k EV cars in 2022 (1500 a day, 220 days a year).
Right, I cited current numbers in ICE production and planned numbers for EV production in 3 years. According to media coverage they only start EV production for real in Zwickau in November.
This is good news, but VW is ultimately motivated by the threat of Dieselgate litigation and fines.
Let's hope this isn't some flash in the pan, Tesla has shown the feasibility, but an EV future really needs one of the big conglomerates onboard as well.
Multiple companies competing will drive batteries well under ICE drivetrains economically in short order.
I don't know how much Dieselgate has affected VW's bottom line but what I do know is that as a consequence of the scandal:
- new cars now come with 6 years warranty which is more than anything anywhere in that price range
- their second hand car program is great, includes 2 years of manufacturer warranty. Last time I wanted to buy a compact I very seriously considered getting a 2015 VW Golf diesel, it includes all future required updates to reduce harmful emissions and it has all the nice advantages of a diesel (high torque, low RPM, nicer IMO engine noise). I ended up deciding against it because the newest VW diesel is 2015 and they started supporting Apple Car/Android Auto in 2016 models.
All in all like I said I don't know if Dieselgate hit their bottom line but around here it seems the streets have a lot more VW cars (a lot of e-Golfs too) since the scandal. No wonder since their cars are now such a great deal.
I recently bought a Golf GTI in the US, bay area. It had 5k miles and still has the 6 year new car warranty plus 2 year cpo warranty so warrantied until 2017.
Also it's fairly well known that 2019 GTIs (a pretty popular car) has a serious defect that has already started the process to begin a formal recall. It's believed that VW modified the car to meet emissions standards, and essentially broke the car in the process so badly they can't fix it. Most dealerships just buy back the car if you mention the problem.
I just paid around $3000 to replace pistons on a golf 7 with 73000km. Supposedly they know it's a fault but no local support aside from reducing the parts price. Initial quote was around $4000. Not loving VW. Never buying another until it's electric.
Was it under warranty? Old cars being unreliable may make VW a questionable choice for some, but what I'm talking about are brand new cars with a factory defect that makes them unsafe to drive. It's roughly equivalent to the ignition key fiasco GM faced a few years ago (or at least that is my take based on the limited information I have).
Shifting to hybrid or full EVs was laudable five or ten years ago, increasingly less so since then. Neither producers nor consumers in the auto market care about LCA's that look at REMs and battery impact. Plus you're only as clean as your electric grid.
The only solution to the climate catastrophe was a massive change in the economy, supply chain, and western consumer culture. Hybrid car technology was a viable wedge or mitigating factor five or ten years ago. Now our only option is to adapt
> Plus you're only as clean as your electric grid.
"The Zwickau plant is supplied with electricity by Volkswagen Kraftwerks GmbH. For a few years now, this company has been offering pure green electricity sourced from hydroelectric power plants, wind farms, and solar parks. This green electricity is TÜV-certified. Even though it costs a little more, Volkswagen Sachsen (with the Zwickau, Dresden, and Chemnitz sites) has been using this green electricity since April 2017. “It is completely CO2-neutral“"
The public charging stations in my town (in Germany) are powered (hooked up to our common electricity network, but in terms of energy bought for them) using hydro power from a nearby river.
Any car owner could use their own generator using coal or oil to power their private charging point though. Generally speaking the only remedy to that is to make CO2 intensive power cost prohibitive. Our government decided just today to attach a CO2 tax to sales of energy sources with CO2 residues, so let's see how that develops.
yes, this is a huge concern. If these cars are powered by coal or other dirty energies it doesn't make sense. Most charger networks here are powered 100% by renewables though
That doesn't contradict the claim I cited: VW Kraftwerk offers a product based on "pure green electricity" (they didn't say they do that exclusively) and apparently Zwickau is buying that product, not the oil based one used in Wolfsburg.
The only feasible way to have cars and trucks in a zero-net-emission economy is to make them electric. Unless you want to scrap all cars and trucks, the electric versions must eventually be developed and mass-produced.
Used car prices are practically always in freefall. You can expect a car to depreciate by over 60% in a decade, even more if it's driven often. I don't expect this to radically change. As demand for gassers lowers, so will the rate of new gassers being purchased, and equilibrium will be kept. As for the really old gas cars on the road- those will maintain their value because we are a long way away from electric cars being competitive on a sub $5000 price point.
Freefall is a metaphor here. The way you define it, maybe it's already happening, fine. Let's grant you that the fact that freefall happens is a given. The rate of freefall can still change, drastically.
In California you can lease a Leaf for $95 / month after subsidies. That actually is pretty competitive with a sub $5000 price point on a competing ICE car that would require the purchase of gasoline.
You're curious whether or not it's realistic for an 82-year-old automotive company with 122 worldwide production plants who produced 11.1M cars last year compared to Tesla's 254k can have just 8 facilities producing electric cars in ~2 years from now?
There's nothing like a Supercharger network to make people buy so many non TSLA electrics. So, how will VW have so much demand to create so much capacity?
2 years ago everyone was saying 2020 would be the year Tesla gets serious competition. VW sure shared a lot about their designs, but so far no way to purchase them in the US.
Maybe they're waiting for legislative support to promote EVs?
VW is betting hard on EV cars - I guess that German goverment will cooperate and will invest heavily into EV infrastructure ...otherwise it will be huge failure.
VW will finally solve problem with other brands within VW group - Skoda and Seat are sucessful brands and often cannibalize VW models (Skoda Kodiaq vs VW Tiguan, VW Passat vs. Skoda Superb etc...). VW presented recently strategy for next few years where they said that Skoda will become 'low-cost' brand and Seat will be more 'luxurious'.
Skoda is allowed to have only 2 EV models in next few years - minicar Citigo and Octavia (midsize sedan/combi), nothing else will be allowed (except few hybrid models) so it will be easier for VW brand to become EV leader in EU in next few years.
Also in the case there will be crisis VW will throw it's cheaper brands 'under the train' in order to survive :/
I am really sad about Skoda. Their current Superb is a wonderful car with great design. Design of current Passat is ugly as hell. If one cannot afford Audi A6, Skoda Superb is the only choice. After defeat device story VW group is anyway dead to me. I don’t want to finance these criminals. And I don’t believe in their EV initiative. They do it only to make people forget the story with defeat device.
> If one cannot afford Audi A6, Skoda Superb is the only choice.
I completely agree with this. In fact, in my country many people are buying Škoda Superb even if they can afford Audi A6, because they don't see Audi A6 as being worth 2x the price.
> After defeat device story VW group is anyway dead to me.
I noticed that all Volkswagen and smaller Audi cars released after 2015 came with much lower interior quality (more scratchy plastics), but the quality of Škoda and Seat cars has noticeably increased.
> And I don’t believe in their EV initiative. They do it only to make people forget the story with defeat device.
No, they do it in order not to become the Nokia of automotive industry after iPhone's release. Because that's where the entire European market is heading after the introduction of stricter emission standards.
The GP is right about infrastructure though. If EU states do not offer incentives for charging stations, the EVs will be worthless and they'll just shoot themselves and the auto industry in the foot with all the stricter emissions standards. Especially the Germans.
VW's electrification efforts are primarily not about competing with Tesla in the US, but about not losing its 24% market share in Europe, where it has multiple non-premium brands, such as Seat and Škoda.
Electrification is a huge thing in the European market after stricter emission standards and additional taxes for car buyers were introduced, and has nothing to do with dieselgate.
I'm planning to buy a new car in two years, and I'm really excited about the possibilities of electric cars then. What I really want is a mid-sized hatchback, with interior form similar to my current Subaru Forester (and a zillion other similar light-duty quasi-SUVs). It's such a popular form factor, and Tesla isn't there on it.
I went from two BEVs to a BEV and a PHEV. One day while I was waiting for the 6th time that day at a glacial refueling rate of "20 miles of range in 5 minutes" with my BEV on a road trip from Seattle to Salt Lake City, I realized that what I value from a plug-in battery is the "full tank" every morning when I pull out of my garage. What I value from gas is the "400 miles of range in 5 minutes" when on a road trip. Suddenly it became abundantly clear that a PHEV was the only thing that made sense for me for a car I use on occasional road trips.
I recently moved from a Subaru Forester to a Kia Niro plug-in and they’ve since offered a Niro EV too. It’s been surprisingly nice. Right now they’re obviously offering them at low volume to dip their toes in the water, but in two years I think it will be a one of many good options.
> Infiniti, the luxury brand of Japanese automaker Nissan, will start phasing out gas-powered vehicles in 2021 and switch to “all electrified” models, the maker’s new CEO Hiroto Saikawa said Tuesday afternoon.
This is vaporware. VW are stuck. They are not able to innovate. VW EVs are always tomorrow, whereas actual manufacturers do deliver EVs now : Nissan and Renault besides Tesla.
Porsche pushes tech in the higher end cars, make it work well and reduce costs, then eventually ends up in audi's / vw's. Look at how porsche 919 hybrid is making power, its totally new.
Neither is the Audi, but as of yet, nobody has been able to compete with the best gas-powered cars of their respective price brackets like Tesla has. Everyone has A LOT of catch up to do if they care about getting enthusiasts to make the switch. Which...they probably couldn't give two shits about :(
EV or not at least make a pretty car. Even a Camry looks better than that horrible looking VW EV.
German car manufacturers will have to innovate harder and need to make inroads in more competitive markets like USA and India instead of relying on Europe.
You do realize that VW has been shipping and selling the e-Golf EV for many years now, and in good quantities? They're all over the bay area, and seem almost as popular as the Leaf.
Is that why VW was doing very aggressive discounts on the eGolfs a couple months ago? I got mine, a 2019, for dirt cheap, little over 12k new before the tax credits.
One of the things they talk about that I find interesting is how different EVs are from ICE cars.
I think we all assume that the companies that have gotten good at making cars, should be able to adapt to EVs, but it's a fundamentally different problem space. EVs and ICE may look alike on the outside, but are very different on the inside. I can't think of a good analogy, but if someone has one please share.
WHY do these vehicles always have to look so freaking dorky? This is one of the things that Tesla nailed. Their vehicles are beautiful, and look like first-class products.
This, the "ID-3" looks like a prius. I'm sure it's a fine car, and I really do love EVs, but man oh man I wish the designers would take a page from Tesla's book.
edit: to be clear, my current car (that my wife and I share) is a chrysler pacifica minivan, which I believe to be one of the best cars I've ever owned. I have no problem with "dorky" vehicles, I am a dork. It's just that if you want to break out of enthusiasts buying your cars for the novelty, you have to make them appealing.
I have a 2015 e-up, it's very fun to drive and it has 210 nm of torque. My Toyota Avensis had 150 (at peak RPM).
It's like driving a go-cart in the city and it charges 75% capacity in about 15 minutes on fast chargers (enough for about 100 km more).
Personally I find it looks quite cool after I did a custom paint job. You can even get it in Honey Yellow [1] from the shop, but personally I think it's a bit gaudy.. My daughters really wanted that colour but I had to nix it!
Oh, I don't mean to say that the Up isn't a good car, I know they are pretty practical and fun to drive for something that small(although according to Which? magazine it's consistently at the bottom of reliability charts, so take that as you will), just that the front of the Up glued onto a golf-size car doesn't look that good.
But beauty is as always in the eye of the beerholder. I don't really fancy how the back of the e-up looks either, but I didn't mind the ID3 all that much.
Nope - the Polo is a good bit smaller than the Golf, it's a Supermini. Think of it like how the Golf used to be back 1970's. The Polo is in the same class as the Ford Fiesta, Mini and Fiat 500.
IIUC, the eGolf was built on an existing ICE vehicle platform. The ID3 is built on a ground-up designed EV platform. So really, they are totally different vehicles.
Not really, it looks like a VW Up. I used to think the BMW i3 was butt ugly but then realised that if it's not light coloured it looks okay. Then the ID.3 was announced. Whatever. Their ICE entry level cars are totally worthless with that VW Up 3 cylinder 1L engine they install on just about every model. I wouldn't be surprised if they equipped a Touareg with that coffee grinder excuse of a "poweplant".
yeah, I don't get it either. Although this one is not that bad.
(tinfoil hat) Seems like they want this to fail to keep ICE and all the supporting industries alive for more $$. After all service/parts is where the real money is...
I don't think your tinfoil hat theory is so far-fetched. Like every other car company before Tesla, they've optimized for ICE cars. From their perspective, the ideal scenario would be that the electric car trend dies out as a fad, leaving their core business (ICE cars) unaffected.
It's pretty far fetched. There's money in service but not for VW or any other OEM. The dealers make money on service. The OEM makes money on cars and financing. It wouldn't surprise me if subtracting warranty from parts sales resulted in a net negative for many models. I'm painting with a broad brush here but that's the gist of it. Going all EVs would simplify a heck of a lot of things for the OEMs.
Oooooooooooor, they are just good engineers and shape the car around the drive train. The id3 is spacious like a big car in the footprint of a small car. No engine means you can move the cabin forward, hatchback means extra trunk space and headspace for the second row.
Everyone in Europe is happy about getting more space in a smaller car. And this compact car shape is common here as well.
The car is completely normal and good looking. Limousines and SUV are not the only valid shapes for cars.
> Seems like they want this to fail to keep ICE and all the supporting industries alive for more $$
That doesn't make sense. They are not spending tens of billions of euros on a project they want to fail.
In any case, the world's two biggest car markets (Europe and China) are introducing stricter fleet emissions standards. If car companies want to stay in the car business they have to electrify to meet the new standards.
It's a matter of urgency for Volkswagen so they can avoid as many EU emissions fines as possible. Paying fines is just dead money. You're much better off investing that money in new car models, which is what Volkswagen is doing.
Toyota's in a better position to meet the standards because they sell a lot of hybrid vehicles.
Tesla has some of the best drag coefficients in the industry (0.23 cd for Model3). Only some specialized versions of other vehicles get better than that.
More rounded front and more boat-tail rear. Small wheels and tires would help too. It would wind up looking 90s up front and 2000s hyper-miler out back. It would certainly not look how we expect a 2019 luxury car to look. When you're courting new car buyers with good credit you can't build something that's all function and no form.
Completely agree. I remember reading Musk had a fights with the original Tesla designer because he wanted to make something weird and funky and ended up firing him. Just make it normal looking, but you know, the good normal.
>WHY do these vehicles always have to look so freaking dorky?
Someone once explained to me that it was because EVs try and minimize the weight of the chassis to extend the range of the vehicle, and it's difficult to get more traditional curvatures in the chassis while doing that and balancing with safety/cost.
Excuses. Build it out of carbon fiber, aluminium or a steel chasis and plastic panels like the Smart. The Smart looks like crap too but it's not like one cannot mold plastic to look good. Just pay some Italian designers to do it.
I drive a Gen-1 Volt (which I love), and it's as sporty and sedan-y as a car can get while still being a hatchback. There's no reason that a non-dorky design can't be made in this form factor.
The Pruis is highly optimized for minimal aerodynamic drag. It's no coincidence the wound up with roughly the same shape. The Model 3 is a similar shape but more sleek because they have more length to work with.
To the extent that it looked like "a normal car", it looked like an absolute bargain-basment Toyota along the lines of a Tercel or something. Different is one thing; different and ugly is quite another.
Nobody wanted to buy one.
It was only sold "in limited numbers" in the US.
According to Toyota, the company was only "breaking even" on each one sold. They weren't really pushing them either.
The second-generation Prius had an incredibly conspicuous
shape, and it sold like hotcakes.
Convenient narrative, but I'd say it's completely false. At best, it's only a small part of the story.
It's not as if the second-gen was a simple rebadge of the first-gen with weirder looks.
First-gen was a funky sedan of limited utility and performance. Additionally the concept of a hybrid vehicle was bizarre and foreign at the time.
The second-gen was a massive improvement in every way. Significant and objective improvements in power, range, comfort, capacity, and so on. Furthermore the hatchback/fastback body style is of much greater convenience and utility.
As far as looks... while it was certainly unconventionial and perhaps not beautiful, the second-gen model looked more "futuristic family car" and less "weird ultra-budget sedan" like the first one.
As others here have mentioned, this is obviously subjective.
I could be wrong but I think beyond that it's also highly regional/cultural.
Teslas look awful to me; they remind me of so many other examples of recent bland US car design: particularly Ford, and with a few hints of the sort of 90s-mazda-esque Corvettes of the past 10-15 years. All very popular aesthetically but to me seem a bit lacking in anything unusual or novel. I would say the same of a fair amount of Japanese car design.
European car design (particularly French, Italian) is often ugly, usually novel, sometimes beautiful. Germans are a bit more conservative (especially VW), but they definitely have their moments.
I am European so I may simply be missing the nuance of non-European design.
While I love what Tesla is doing, I also think their external design is their least appealing part.
I think there are many fine examples of great car designs. Recently, I can think of Mini, Fiat 500, Alfa 147, Alfa MiTo, Golf Mk I & II, Lamborghini Gallardo, BMW 3 series E21-E46...
Fiat have an electric 500, and Citroen have been reselling Mitsubishi EVs for a looong time, but yeah, not a whole lot going on. I figured GP was discussing design aesthetic in general though.
I always thought BMWs grills looked more snout-like than BBQ-ish...
Tesla cars remind me particularly of Ford Europe's bland but also ugly phase of the early 90s, like the first model Mondeo that wasn't sure what it wanted to be, and the fugly frog-faced last model Granada Scorpio. Or Mazda of the same era.
They have the same ability to combine total inoffensive blandness, with some detail or corner that just looks plain wrong, ugly, the wrong size or damaged with vehicle lines that neither align nor complement each other. The Tesla Model 3 ends up looking like a poor attempt at a parts bin special, as though nothing at all was originally intended for the Model 3. Of course some actual parts bin specials were very successful - like the first model Land Rover Discovery.
This is a common misconception, but no, it’s not subjective. There is such a thing as mass appeal.
I don’t know whether the Model 3 or the ID3 has it, but this “design is subjective” meme is wrong and I think a little bit disrespectful to design as a profession, where people spend decades learning how to build things that are—objectively—appealing and functional.
Of course individual reactions and needs vary. But that doesn’t mean the design space is a totally relativistic fog.
I think you're mixing up "objective" with shared lived experience / perspective / values.
"Subjective" doesn't necessarily mean "highly varied" on a per-individual level. Mass appeal is about a group of people sharing perspective as a result of a common societal context.
Talk about being disrespectful to design as a profession: the psychology and context that informs such subjective views is a big part of design. Saying it's objective reduces something of deep complexity to a set of simplistic rules that can be blindly followed by anyone.
I mean, on the other hand, it is kinda like the iphone effect, Apple realized that new colors sell because people want others to know their choices and that they have the new thing. People who want an electric car so far have shown that they want that fact to be obvious.
That said, have you seen the new Honda city car? It's beautiful.
More like a Golf 1, which was a dorky but quite functional car. I prefer that look to many of the modern small windows, no windows cars with lots of dead angles. Like the new Mazda 3 or the Toyota CH-R. We already have a Civic and I hate driving it in around town because of the low visibility.
This confused the hell out of me, because I'm quite fond of Golfs and agree. Turns out I had to append the word "electric" to my search, otherwise I got a very Civic-looking car.
The so far is key. BMW said the same when they launches the i3, that EV owners want to make a "statement."
But I think that's actually holding EVs back. I don't want to make a statement with my car (or phone for that matter). Always making EVs look exotic says that this product is only for enthusiast. I want the android of EVs not the iPhone.
I get a sense that the auto executives at these non EV companies do not want their EVs to succeed. Of course that started with the EV1 but the CEO of Fiat begged customers not to buy the 500e.
In the mind of a lot of traditional carmakers, the main reason someone might buy an EV is to signal their environmental bona fides. So they make them look purposely weird.
Aerodynamics is a big design factor for EVs, as lower coefficient of drag leads to higher efficiency and less battery capacity needed. Tesla clearly has much more aesthetically pleasing aerodynamic cars better than others like Chevy and Nissan...in fact those cars are both uglier and less aerodynamic.
I am not a fanboy, but Tesla simply has the best EVs on the market.
I like the interiors of teslas, but the front of the model 3 looks fairly dorky to me, and the back looks like any other corolla. I don't think tesla is free from the dork factor.
Their vehicles are so bland-looking that a buddy of mine stated a few years ago that he'd never seen a Tesla. Even a few years ago, if you worked at Microsoft like he does, I guarantee you parked next to one some time this week, and saw at least one on your way to or from work today. To quote another MSFT friend: "buying a Tesla is like a rite of passage around here."
I'll bet he remembers the singular time he saw that Ferrari 458 that parks in building 32, though.
Personally, Ford Taurus, Tesla 3/S, same difference: nothing wrong with it, nothing memorable.
Most VWs are pretty bland. They're maybe slightly at the more recognisable end of the spectrum, but only incrementally, because that's the look that works at mass market scale. So given that, why does their mainstream, bet the company EV have to look like something from a 90s SF action movie?
The point about Teslas looking like other cars is that being an EV should be a normal, everyday thing. That's exactly the future that Tesla is aiming for. Whether a car is bland looking, weird looking or whatever should be entirely decoupled from whether it's an EV or not. They are orthogonal concerns. The weird look of this car is a worrying sign that VW does not get this, and is therefore missing the plot in a near future where EVs will be just cars.
I have the hybrid Pacifica and it is a great car. The transmission and electric drive is amazing. I think the car sells itself, as I suspect the ID-3 will. But I don't think the ID-3 will be available in the US :(
My sense is that automakers believe that low-emissions cars will not sell well unless people can acquire them as a means of signalling virtue and wealth. In other words, unless the car is instantly identifiable as a fancy new EV, a large subset of potential buyers will lack interest.
I suspect this is mostly myth propped up by apocryphal assertions that Prius sold well due to its distinct look. But I am just a long-time curious observer, not an expert.
It's interesting then, that the new Peugeot 208 range has identical bodywork across the range regardless of whether they have electric, petrol or diesel drivetrains.
Personally, I'm disappointed when a car isn't designed from scratch to take full advantage of the packaging options of an electric drivetrain, but see this as a reasonable compromise for manufacturers at the present time.
> I suspect this is mostly myth propped up by apocryphal assertions that Prius sold well due to its distinct look
What I read was that the sales of Toyota's hybrid versions of their "normal-looking cars" (Camry Hybrid, etc) were disappointing in comparison to the Prius (especially if the theory is that people were avoiding the Prius due to design and would prefer a less-radical car that still got great gas mileage). I don't know if there's any truth to that.
> WHY do these vehicles always have to look so freaking dorky?
Because they're targeting early adopters who want to buy a car that looks like a science project. Once they move onto targeting early mainstream, it will start looking more like other cars. Just look at how the Prius changed its look over time.
That's totally why I got my first Spark EV in 2013. It has a tiny badge that says EV so you can tell I care about saving the earth. Although to be fair, the otherwise identical gas Spark looks dorky too.
It doesn't look like a Prius at all, looks much nicer in the videos than in pictures. The non-white models with typical rims could easily be mistaken for a hatchback Golf.
Good quote I’ve heard on this topic: “we don’t want your electric car; we want your car, electric.” Just give us all of your normal lineup with an electric option and stop trying to create a different looking vehicle just because it is electric. It is like having a gas and diesel option!
> The ID.3, scheduled to hit the streets by midyear, is the first of at least 70 electric cars in VW’s pipeline.
This whole article is weird. Are we supposed to pretend the e-Golf hasn't existed for years?
> While the ID.3, priced from around $30,000 with a range of 200 miles or more, is aimed at countering the threat from Tesla’s Model 3, its stiffest competition will come from gasoline-powered cars such as VW’s own Golf hatchback.
I mean... yeah? The Model 3 isn't a hatchback. Americans still have reservations against hatchbacks for some silly reason. And the real competition against a VW hatchback is going to be the Prius. Tesla is a tech gadget. The VW is a car. You really can't discount the fact that many people buy Tesla because of the coolness of the gadgets.
The “first car in the pipeline” part is referring to the new generation of vehicles built on purpose built EV platforms shared across many models, whereas the e-Golf is an electric drivetrain retrofitted into a combustion car and the e-Tron is a one off.
Reminds me of a quote I read about the gap between what the electric car market wants and what legacy carmakers produce -
"Carmakers keep designing these cars thinking we want to buy their new electric cars, they don't realize we just want to buy their regular cars, in electric"
It's easy to ignoring the thousand small tweaks you've made over the years in response to user feedback or bugs or the little details that came up after-the-fact.
You think it's just the base feature you need to recreate, then a few months in you're stuck in the weeds recreating the hundred details you didn't factor into the redesign.
(this is my life, I rebuild rails/jquery features into far better designed Vue.js ones with powerful flexibility added on top and constantly get hung up on the details)
This article might suggest to some that this is VW's first electric car. The fleet of all shared car services in my city consist of electric e-UPs or electric Golfs, which are simply amazing.
The article seems biased and politically charged (US vs EU car manufacturing).
192 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadThere is no reason for VW to not build more, if the demand is there. If the demand is not there, then it can become a financial disaster.
The problem is that EVs are going to cannibalize the legacy auto industry. It takes far less people [1], far less parts (typical combustion engine has ~2k moving parts, a Tesla powertrain has ~17), just a much smaller supply chain overall [2] to deliver EVs. And these EVs will last much, much longer than your traditional combustion vehicles.
Legacy automakers are fighting over the smaller pie that will be left over, hence the handwringing. Innovator's Dilemma [3]. Governments should be looking at the auto industry the same way they look at coal: upskill those who will stay, transition out those who a redundant. It's quite worse than coal, actually. Coal only employs ~50k people in the US. The auto industry employs over 7 million.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/gm-strike-highlights-how-shi...
[2] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF11101.pdf
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
But even that strategy will only last for so long. Whenever autonomous fleets take over they'll sell even fewer vehicles per person.
The result is then just delayed by historic capital and reallocation.
Apparently the same is true for 2 US factories, so that's 3 EV factories and -3 ICE factories.
https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c...
8 Factories are quite a lot when you think that VW has only 3 electric vehicles in the pipeline (id.3,id.crozz and id.buzz) and also does not own any battery manufacturing plant.
It's a very risky move for VW. Margins on ICEs are way higher and VW factory staff is way pricier than tesla's. They can't really burn cash the same way since going belly up would be way more devastating. That's why other big manufacturers like toyota are similarly cautious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_facto...
Of course, if/when Tesla ever builds a European plant it may be much smaller than their current footprint. That isn't uncommon for Europe, so if I had to hazard a guess, the VW plants will average less than 400k/plant as well.
Even going from where they are to 2 million per year over the next few years would be a great accomplishment, though. And that certainly seems feasible, if not necessarily likely. ICE companies have an even worse track record than Tesla at keeping promises on electric vehicle schedules.
Source: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Elektroautos-Im-VW-W...
Let's hope this isn't some flash in the pan, Tesla has shown the feasibility, but an EV future really needs one of the big conglomerates onboard as well.
Multiple companies competing will drive batteries well under ICE drivetrains economically in short order.
- new cars now come with 6 years warranty which is more than anything anywhere in that price range
- their second hand car program is great, includes 2 years of manufacturer warranty. Last time I wanted to buy a compact I very seriously considered getting a 2015 VW Golf diesel, it includes all future required updates to reduce harmful emissions and it has all the nice advantages of a diesel (high torque, low RPM, nicer IMO engine noise). I ended up deciding against it because the newest VW diesel is 2015 and they started supporting Apple Car/Android Auto in 2016 models.
All in all like I said I don't know if Dieselgate hit their bottom line but around here it seems the streets have a lot more VW cars (a lot of e-Golfs too) since the scandal. No wonder since their cars are now such a great deal.
As someone who took advantage of this deal, this no longer applies starting in 2020.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/08/01/volkswa...
Also it's fairly well known that 2019 GTIs (a pretty popular car) has a serious defect that has already started the process to begin a formal recall. It's believed that VW modified the car to meet emissions standards, and essentially broke the car in the process so badly they can't fix it. Most dealerships just buy back the car if you mention the problem.
https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showpost.php?p=835026&postcou...
So I feel like VW is still doing some shady shit regarding dieselgate.
The only solution to the climate catastrophe was a massive change in the economy, supply chain, and western consumer culture. Hybrid car technology was a viable wedge or mitigating factor five or ten years ago. Now our only option is to adapt
"The Zwickau plant is supplied with electricity by Volkswagen Kraftwerks GmbH. For a few years now, this company has been offering pure green electricity sourced from hydroelectric power plants, wind farms, and solar parks. This green electricity is TÜV-certified. Even though it costs a little more, Volkswagen Sachsen (with the Zwickau, Dresden, and Chemnitz sites) has been using this green electricity since April 2017. “It is completely CO2-neutral“"
https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c...
Thankfully, in general the United States energy grid is getting less CO2-intensive.
The public charging stations in my town (in Germany) are powered (hooked up to our common electricity network, but in terms of energy bought for them) using hydro power from a nearby river.
Any car owner could use their own generator using coal or oil to power their private charging point though. Generally speaking the only remedy to that is to make CO2 intensive power cost prohibitive. Our government decided just today to attach a CO2 tax to sales of energy sources with CO2 residues, so let's see how that develops.
Lifetime emissions for EVs beat ICE cars in 2-5 years [citation needed]
In California you can lease a Leaf for $95 / month after subsidies. That actually is pretty competitive with a sub $5000 price point on a competing ICE car that would require the purchase of gasoline.
That seems like a fairly reasonable goal to me.
- lacking infrastructure in cities
Will they have enough demand?
There's nothing like a Supercharger network to make people buy so many non TSLA electrics. So, how will VW have so much demand to create so much capacity?
2022 seems to be the bellwether year of EVs as many manufacturers are predicted to have models by then and more than one in general.
Maybe they're waiting for legislative support to promote EVs?
VW will finally solve problem with other brands within VW group - Skoda and Seat are sucessful brands and often cannibalize VW models (Skoda Kodiaq vs VW Tiguan, VW Passat vs. Skoda Superb etc...). VW presented recently strategy for next few years where they said that Skoda will become 'low-cost' brand and Seat will be more 'luxurious'.
Skoda is allowed to have only 2 EV models in next few years - minicar Citigo and Octavia (midsize sedan/combi), nothing else will be allowed (except few hybrid models) so it will be easier for VW brand to become EV leader in EU in next few years.
Also in the case there will be crisis VW will throw it's cheaper brands 'under the train' in order to survive :/
I completely agree with this. In fact, in my country many people are buying Škoda Superb even if they can afford Audi A6, because they don't see Audi A6 as being worth 2x the price.
> After defeat device story VW group is anyway dead to me.
I noticed that all Volkswagen and smaller Audi cars released after 2015 came with much lower interior quality (more scratchy plastics), but the quality of Škoda and Seat cars has noticeably increased.
> And I don’t believe in their EV initiative. They do it only to make people forget the story with defeat device.
No, they do it in order not to become the Nokia of automotive industry after iPhone's release. Because that's where the entire European market is heading after the introduction of stricter emission standards.
The Skoda Vision iV is not a bad looking EV:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O72uf9DNakk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1g9xl6W_E
If EVs have to truly succeed they have to be coming from more than one brand.
- Mitsubishi Outland PHEV - Hyundai Ionic series - Chevy BoltEV
Lincoln Aviator PHEV, Prosche Cayenne Hybrid covering luxury SUV segment.
There are tons of EVs and PHEVs out there which pretty much cover a large swath of vehicle size already.
The problem is these sites that are supposed to promote Electric Drive train jerk-off weeks on Tesla rumors and Elons tweets.
We kept being told that Tesla's lunch was going to get eaten by the "big boys" but that's been 8 years coming and we're still... waiting.
Disclosure: I own a non-Tesla EV.
I have the Kia EV, and I don't love it, but I really like it. For the price it is great.
is that not exactly the niche that the Model X is trying to serve?
> Infiniti, the luxury brand of Japanese automaker Nissan, will start phasing out gas-powered vehicles in 2021 and switch to “all electrified” models, the maker’s new CEO Hiroto Saikawa said Tuesday afternoon.
Edit: I was wrong. I could lease Macan for ~700€/month.
Anyone can buy a Porsche with a payment plan. Unfortunately, I know someone who did.
German car manufacturers will have to innovate harder and need to make inroads in more competitive markets like USA and India instead of relying on Europe.
https://www.wired.com/2010/07/vw-300k-evs-annually-2018/
I want the company to succeed at EV's more than anyone but if the rollout of the e-tron is any indication it is not going to be smooth sailing:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508066/audi-etron-delay...
https://slickdeals.net/f/13163326-21-000-off-msrp-2019-volks...
https://www.motor1.com/news/378009/vw-golf-8-production-deta...
One of the things they talk about that I find interesting is how different EVs are from ICE cars.
I think we all assume that the companies that have gotten good at making cars, should be able to adapt to EVs, but it's a fundamentally different problem space. EVs and ICE may look alike on the outside, but are very different on the inside. I can't think of a good analogy, but if someone has one please share.
This, the "ID-3" looks like a prius. I'm sure it's a fine car, and I really do love EVs, but man oh man I wish the designers would take a page from Tesla's book.
edit: to be clear, my current car (that my wife and I share) is a chrysler pacifica minivan, which I believe to be one of the best cars I've ever owned. I have no problem with "dorky" vehicles, I am a dork. It's just that if you want to break out of enthusiasts buying your cars for the novelty, you have to make them appealing.
It's like driving a go-cart in the city and it charges 75% capacity in about 15 minutes on fast chargers (enough for about 100 km more).
Personally I find it looks quite cool after I did a custom paint job. You can even get it in Honey Yellow [1] from the shop, but personally I think it's a bit gaudy.. My daughters really wanted that colour but I had to nix it!
[1] https://www.greencarguide.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/V...
But beauty is as always in the eye of the beerholder. I don't really fancy how the back of the e-up looks either, but I didn't mind the ID3 all that much.
From wikipedia:
ID.3:
Golf: Also much longer wheelbase (2,765 vs 2,637).(tinfoil hat) Seems like they want this to fail to keep ICE and all the supporting industries alive for more $$. After all service/parts is where the real money is...
Everyone in Europe is happy about getting more space in a smaller car. And this compact car shape is common here as well.
The car is completely normal and good looking. Limousines and SUV are not the only valid shapes for cars.
That doesn't make sense. They are not spending tens of billions of euros on a project they want to fail.
In any case, the world's two biggest car markets (Europe and China) are introducing stricter fleet emissions standards. If car companies want to stay in the car business they have to electrify to meet the new standards.
It's a matter of urgency for Volkswagen so they can avoid as many EU emissions fines as possible. Paying fines is just dead money. You're much better off investing that money in new car models, which is what Volkswagen is doing.
Toyota's in a better position to meet the standards because they sell a lot of hybrid vehicles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammback
Someone once explained to me that it was because EVs try and minimize the weight of the chassis to extend the range of the vehicle, and it's difficult to get more traditional curvatures in the chassis while doing that and balancing with safety/cost.
No idea how accurate that is.
The Pruis is highly optimized for minimal aerodynamic drag. It's no coincidence the wound up with roughly the same shape. The Model 3 is a similar shape but more sleek because they have more length to work with.
And
> Model 3 - Bug Edition.
Choose one...
Because when the first Prius launched, it looked like a normal car.
Nobody wanted to buy one.
The second-generation Prius had an incredibly conspicuous shape, and it sold like hotcakes.
See the various generations here: https://global.toyota/en/prius20th/evolution/
Seriously, it was a very odd-looking car: http://www.imcdb.org/i044705.jpg
To the extent that it looked like "a normal car", it looked like an absolute bargain-basment Toyota along the lines of a Tercel or something. Different is one thing; different and ugly is quite another.
It was only sold "in limited numbers" in the US.According to Toyota, the company was only "breaking even" on each one sold. They weren't really pushing them either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#First_generation_...
Convenient narrative, but I'd say it's completely false. At best, it's only a small part of the story.It's not as if the second-gen was a simple rebadge of the first-gen with weirder looks.
First-gen was a funky sedan of limited utility and performance. Additionally the concept of a hybrid vehicle was bizarre and foreign at the time.
The second-gen was a massive improvement in every way. Significant and objective improvements in power, range, comfort, capacity, and so on. Furthermore the hatchback/fastback body style is of much greater convenience and utility.
As far as looks... while it was certainly unconventionial and perhaps not beautiful, the second-gen model looked more "futuristic family car" and less "weird ultra-budget sedan" like the first one.
I could be wrong but I think beyond that it's also highly regional/cultural.
Teslas look awful to me; they remind me of so many other examples of recent bland US car design: particularly Ford, and with a few hints of the sort of 90s-mazda-esque Corvettes of the past 10-15 years. All very popular aesthetically but to me seem a bit lacking in anything unusual or novel. I would say the same of a fair amount of Japanese car design.
European car design (particularly French, Italian) is often ugly, usually novel, sometimes beautiful. Germans are a bit more conservative (especially VW), but they definitely have their moments.
I am European so I may simply be missing the nuance of non-European design.
I think there are many fine examples of great car designs. Recently, I can think of Mini, Fiat 500, Alfa 147, Alfa MiTo, Golf Mk I & II, Lamborghini Gallardo, BMW 3 series E21-E46...
Fiat and Citroen are, on the more reasonably priced end of the spectrum, doing innovative/interesting things that are at the very least not bland.
GRILLs, Grills everywhere!
Yaawwwwhhhrrrrr! Grrrrrrrrr!
Grills == BBQ == Manly!
Sorry, I'm just poking fun. There are so many auto style people that go ga-ga over something that is fundamentally inefficient aerodynamically.
I'd like to note that Fiat and Citroen, based on my rather sparse knowledge, are basically not even bothering with EVs at the moment.
I always thought BMWs grills looked more snout-like than BBQ-ish...
They have the same ability to combine total inoffensive blandness, with some detail or corner that just looks plain wrong, ugly, the wrong size or damaged with vehicle lines that neither align nor complement each other. The Tesla Model 3 ends up looking like a poor attempt at a parts bin special, as though nothing at all was originally intended for the Model 3. Of course some actual parts bin specials were very successful - like the first model Land Rover Discovery.
I don’t know whether the Model 3 or the ID3 has it, but this “design is subjective” meme is wrong and I think a little bit disrespectful to design as a profession, where people spend decades learning how to build things that are—objectively—appealing and functional.
Of course individual reactions and needs vary. But that doesn’t mean the design space is a totally relativistic fog.
"Subjective" doesn't necessarily mean "highly varied" on a per-individual level. Mass appeal is about a group of people sharing perspective as a result of a common societal context.
Talk about being disrespectful to design as a profession: the psychology and context that informs such subjective views is a big part of design. Saying it's objective reduces something of deep complexity to a set of simplistic rules that can be blindly followed by anyone.
That said, have you seen the new Honda city car? It's beautiful.
The so far is key. BMW said the same when they launches the i3, that EV owners want to make a "statement."
But I think that's actually holding EVs back. I don't want to make a statement with my car (or phone for that matter). Always making EVs look exotic says that this product is only for enthusiast. I want the android of EVs not the iPhone.
It’s not just electrics. Honda used to make sleek cars but now they have weird shapes and curves for no reason. Comes off as desperate.
I am not a fanboy, but Tesla simply has the best EVs on the market.
Their vehicles are so bland-looking that a buddy of mine stated a few years ago that he'd never seen a Tesla. Even a few years ago, if you worked at Microsoft like he does, I guarantee you parked next to one some time this week, and saw at least one on your way to or from work today. To quote another MSFT friend: "buying a Tesla is like a rite of passage around here."
I'll bet he remembers the singular time he saw that Ferrari 458 that parks in building 32, though.
Personally, Ford Taurus, Tesla 3/S, same difference: nothing wrong with it, nothing memorable.
Most VWs are pretty bland. They're maybe slightly at the more recognisable end of the spectrum, but only incrementally, because that's the look that works at mass market scale. So given that, why does their mainstream, bet the company EV have to look like something from a 90s SF action movie?
The point about Teslas looking like other cars is that being an EV should be a normal, everyday thing. That's exactly the future that Tesla is aiming for. Whether a car is bland looking, weird looking or whatever should be entirely decoupled from whether it's an EV or not. They are orthogonal concerns. The weird look of this car is a worrying sign that VW does not get this, and is therefore missing the plot in a near future where EVs will be just cars.
The ID.3 looks like a nice hatchback to me. Here's Volkswagen's ad for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjvgXWA78E
The augmented reality heads up display looks interesting.
I suspect this is mostly myth propped up by apocryphal assertions that Prius sold well due to its distinct look. But I am just a long-time curious observer, not an expert.
What I read was that the sales of Toyota's hybrid versions of their "normal-looking cars" (Camry Hybrid, etc) were disappointing in comparison to the Prius (especially if the theory is that people were avoiding the Prius due to design and would prefer a less-radical car that still got great gas mileage). I don't know if there's any truth to that.
That's totally why I bought my sweet sexy Spark EV.
Because they're targeting early adopters who want to buy a car that looks like a science project. Once they move onto targeting early mainstream, it will start looking more like other cars. Just look at how the Prius changed its look over time.
Beauty is relative. I find the look of Tesla “dorky”, especially the piggy nose of the Model 3. However, I’d not defend a design of id.3.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a20733943/2022-volkswa...
This whole article is weird. Are we supposed to pretend the e-Golf hasn't existed for years?
> While the ID.3, priced from around $30,000 with a range of 200 miles or more, is aimed at countering the threat from Tesla’s Model 3, its stiffest competition will come from gasoline-powered cars such as VW’s own Golf hatchback.
I mean... yeah? The Model 3 isn't a hatchback. Americans still have reservations against hatchbacks for some silly reason. And the real competition against a VW hatchback is going to be the Prius. Tesla is a tech gadget. The VW is a car. You really can't discount the fact that many people buy Tesla because of the coolness of the gadgets.
They're not selling the ID.3 in the US initially.
Europe will get the ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjvgXWA78E
And the US will get the ID.4 which is a bigger car on the same MEB platform: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot...
Longer term they probably will make both cars available in both markets.
"Carmakers keep designing these cars thinking we want to buy their new electric cars, they don't realize we just want to buy their regular cars, in electric"
You think it's just the base feature you need to recreate, then a few months in you're stuck in the weeds recreating the hundred details you didn't factor into the redesign.
(this is my life, I rebuild rails/jquery features into far better designed Vue.js ones with powerful flexibility added on top and constantly get hung up on the details)
The article seems biased and politically charged (US vs EU car manufacturing).