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VW CEO says they’ll have ‘EVs as good as Tesla’s for half the price by 2020’
- meddlepal 8y agoStockprice Quote. Good luck.
- rb666 8y agoPlot twist: They Won't.
- sschueller 8y agoPlot double twist: VW won't actually produce more or cheaper EVs but Tesla goes under and stops making cars so technically this statement is still correct.
- christogreeff 8y agoTriple plot twist: VAG buys Tesla
- ashildr 8y agoQuadruple plot twist: Tesla buys VAG (Being German VAG not succeeding is quite a frightening perspective. But being human I appreciate Musk jumpstarting the EV business, whoever will be the big players in the end.)
- majewsky 8y agoQuintuple plot twist: Tesla attempts to buy VW, but ends up pulling a Porsche and getting bought by VW in the act.
- flashgordon 8y agoIt is funny when competitors mention: "We will take a currently winning product X and deliver 2X by some future date Y." Imagine if competitors actually said: "We will first catch up to X by some date before Y. Then we will hit 2X by Y".
- MagnumOpus 8y agoNot much need for “catching up” rhetorics when currently 100x more new car buyers decide to buy a VW than a Tesla.
- madaxe_again 8y agoVW are selling 100x as many EVs as Tesla? Really? Do you have a source for this claim?
- newnewpdro 8y agoThat's not the claim they made, and you're willfully ignoring that detail.
- kjksf 8y agoWe're talking about electric cars, where VW does indeed needs a lot of catching up to Tesla. Not that they actually plan to catch up. In May 2018 their official plan was to make 1 million electric cars by 2025 (https://electrek.co/2018/05/29/vw-electric-vehicle-demand-europe-china-beat/ https://electrek.co/2018/05/29/vw-electric-vehicle-demand-eu...). Tesla is already making ~300k per year, is on track to make ~500k within 9 months in Fremont, has already started building China plant that will add 250k within 2 years and 500k within 4-5 years, has already telegraphed building European plant for another 500k cars and will most likely start building Model Y in Nevada starting sometime 2020. Bottom line is that Tesla will likely reach 1 million cars a year by 2022, 3 years before VW. Maybe VW will speed up their plans but batteries don't grow on trees. Recently we learned that LG Chem wants Audi (part of VW group) to pay 10% more for batteries because demand outstrips the supply (https://electrek.co/2018/10/22/audi-e-tron-delay-software-lg-price-batteries/ https://electrek.co/2018/10/22/audi-e-tron-delay-software-lg...). Tesla has been designing battery packs since Roadster days and building Gigafactory 1 since January 2015 so almost 4 years to build battery capacity for ~400k cars. As far as I know VW has no battery R&D and relies for the most important and most expensive component of ev car on 3rd party suppliers who also supply the same thing to their competitors and apparently are so swamped by demand that they can raise prices while Tesla is aggressively bringing the price of batteries down. And it remains to be seen if they are able to create software that is as refined as Tesla's.
- askafriend 8y agoI'm sure Tesla will also have EVs as good as Tesla for half the price by 2020. They'll also have a vastly improved super charger network, a mature software ecosystem, a mature direct sales/servicing model, and whatever else they dream up like Powerwall and other systems that can potentially add value to the whole. VW will just be scratching the surface by 2020 while Tesla will likely continue sprinting ahead.
- sigi45 8y agoSure but VW produces 10 Million a year. Tesla 100k. VW hast way more: experience, capacity, people, money. They can probably do that.
- askafriend 8y agoVW produces 10 million regular ICE cars a year. It will take time to shift an entire entrenched organizational culture to focus on EVs...and not just making them, but to make ones that are truly without compromise ("as good as Tesla"). These things aren't easy at all, though it might be tempting to think that it's just a matter of resources. Microsoft had all the resources in the world and still couldn't pull off Bing or Windows Phone. To challenge your thinking a bit, consider this: part of the reason you can buy a Tesla in California or Texas today and not worry about range at all is the supercharger network that can take your Model 3 from 0 to 80% in 20mins. That's a multi decade infrastructure investment that VW hasn't even begun. And no, regular 3rd party chargers you see plopped in random malls and centers aren't even close. Not by a long shot.
- twblalock 8y agoI think you'll find that what VW cares most about is selling cars, not selling ICE cars. If someone proves the market for electric cars viable (thanks Tesla!), VW will not have trouble convincing themselves to make some. In fact, the Audi e-tron is coming out soon and it is based on one of the most popular VW group compact crossovers, which is a much hotter market segment than sedans. I know a lot of Tesla owners and they don't rely on superchargers when they travel. They just drive one of their other cars, or fly. The superchargers are not as big of an advantage as they seem to be, especially in urban areas where they are overcrowded. Futhermore, they are not free for owners of the Model 3, and usage is free only under certain limits for owners of other Tesla models: https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharging https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharging
- TekMol 8y agoAt first I thought this is an unusually short news article. Took me a while to figure out that scrolling on this page is broken unless you enable javascript. Looks like the reason is that it needs Googles amp code to function. It's hillarious that Google gets away bloating the web with crap and selling us that as a way to make it more lightweight. Flagging it for this reason. I think we should not support AMP here on HN.
- bonestamp2 8y agoTry the uMatrix browser plugin. No cross domain javascript is loaded by default, and it's super configurable. I was able to read this page, but the map and some other content was blocked.
- TekMol 8y agoI do use uMatrix and love it. If you were able to read it without js, the reason is probably that HN meanwhile changed the link to the non-amp version.
- bonestamp2 8y agoAh ok, cheers to another uMatrix user!
- captainmuon 8y agoI wish. I'd pay a lot if someone would make a good e-version of a "boring" car like a Golf. No huge center-mounted display, no app store, no forced remote updates, no DRM locking me out of reparing my own car. If they keep the sensors for partially automated driving as a better cruise control, I'm fine with that. Unfortunately, the current e-Golf is just a regular Golf poorly converted to electric, way too expensive and with not enough range.
- LeoPanthera 8y agoSounds like the Nissan Leaf?
- reacharavindh 8y agoThis. I'm also waiting for this. A Golf with electric range as much as a Tesla, with supercharging like charging capabilities will be the best...
- geezerjay 8y ago> A Golf with electric range as much as a Tesla, with supercharging like charging capabilities will be the best... VW's e-golf is advertised as having a 140 mile range. It's noticeably lower than Tesla's advertised range of 200 mile but as it's a city car designed for the european market I'm not sure it's relevant. I mean, in some european countries that's more than enough to drive through the entire nation.
- fattire 8y agoThe Model 3's advertised long range is 310 miles.
- timcederman 8y agoWhich model? A couple of years ago I got an e-Golf and it's been pretty amazing. I say that as someone who owned 2 (petrol) Golfs prior. I got it cheaper than any previous Golf and it had more features too. I understand range anxiety, but the same holds (at the same price) with other marks (I've also owned a Leaf). What makes the e-Golf poorly converted and too expensive?
- amenghra 8y agoBut will they sneak a diesel engine in the trunk?
- majewsky 8y agoNo, but by German ingenuity, they'll find another way to have to cheat emissions tests.
- avelis 8y agoElon Musk: “Do it.”
- tebbers 8y agoI can’t speak for others, but personally I wouldn’t entertain the purchase of a VW or anything from the VW Group after the dieselgate fiasco - regardless of whether it’s electric or not.
- marenkay 8y agoIf they had them developed this far, why did they sell us the current crap for three decades with no signs of EVs?
- Dennip 8y agoDoes anyone else think traditional manufacturers will initially sell their EV's at a loss or low profit margin to get a bigger foothold in the market, being propped up by their sales of diesel/petrol cars.
- kumarvvr 8y agoPossible, but is it really worth it if they don't have the infrastructure to back up their EV's? Also, what will happen to the price of ICE cars if EV's start catching up?
- kumarvvr 8y agoKinda sad to see companies like VW miss the opportunity.
- RickJWagner 8y agoVW has enough problems with the quality of their ICE vehicles. They don't need to brag about quality of the relatively new electric vehicles. If VWs electric vehicles really are as good as Tesla's by 2020, it will be more a condemnation of Tesla than praise for VW.