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$23k hardly covers the battery, motor and controllers let alone the chassis or anything else, at all. I’d be surprised if this was any good at all. Would have t

$23k hardly covers the battery, motor and controllers let alone the chassis or anything else, at all. I’d be surprised if this was any good at all. Would have to cut corners everywhere. Source: I design electric trucks.

hndamien 8y ago
I really hope the media holds them to their $23k claim as hard as they hold Tesla to $35k.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
freeflight 8y ago
There are quite a few e-car models in that price range, like Citroën C-Zero or Renault Zoe. Tho I wouldn't really consider those as "Tesla rivals".
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>I’d be surprised if this was any good at all. Would have to cut corners everywhere. It's "engineering trade offs" when you do it and "cutting corners" when the competition does it.
- aetherspawn 8y ago
  It’s one thing to say someone cuts corners but in the world of electric vehicles you really can cut corners. For example, have no precharge system. Don’t monitor the temperature of every battery cell. No manual disconnect for the high voltage battery. Put cab heater on the same coolant circuit as the engine so that if you use the heater the drivetrain efficiency plummets (but not on paper). Use an electric vacuum brake booster so you can leverage cheap components from petrol cars (although every single one I’ve seen has been prone to early failure). Skimp on your front brakes/calipers because you have regen. Completely ignore battery impact protection. Use non automotive components that are only rated to 60C because you can on an EV and not necessarily because you should. Select cheap low voltage components with barely a safety factor on HV bus without considering that IGBTs derate approx. 50% during a solar event.
doodlebugging 8y ago
As a current VW owner and owner of 3 VWs at one point I can speak to how they cut costs. Between the 3 vehicles that I personally owned and drove we have more than half a million miles in VW cars. As you suggest and as any long-term VW owner can attest, they cut corners everywhere. From experience - some wire harness sections are minimum gauge for the load that they potentially carry creating a fire hazard; interior lighting may be reliable in some cars and bulbs may tend to burn out in other similar cars due to use of less expensive bulbs; plastic components do not survive many flexing cycles before breaking due to the plastic being very thin in the panels and especially in the attachment gussets; microswitches that control the door locks, door alarm and window switches tend to fail also. In addition, the headlight pods on the Beetle slide into the front fenders and should be held securely but over time the mechanism that keeps them firmly connected to the bulb socket develops enough slack that the pods can slide forward enough to break connection and kill your headlights. One or both will develop this problem and VW dealerships will gladly sell you new bulbs or new pods when the problem can be fixed by adding additional attachment under the hood so that the pod can't slide forward while the vehicle is being driven. It may sound strange for someone who has driven their vehicles for so many miles to be complaining about stuff like this but I also own vehicles from Ford and Nissan and have never had similar problems with those vehicles. My old Bronco, '92 model, still looks new on the inside with >300k miles and my '01 Pathfinder looks brand new with 230k miles. I currently own three Fords with a combined mileage >840k miles, two Broncos and one F150. I have owned and later sold 3 others in the last 30 years after rolling up more than 400k miles between them. I also have owned another Nissan that we sold years ago after racking up a lot of miles with no issues. And then there was the Saab, but that's probably just another Saab story. I just wanted to give real life examples from personal experience so that people could understand I'm not a hater who has no experience with the vehicles. I'm actually someone who bought one and loved it enough to buy others and drive them for a long time.

hndamien 8y ago

I really hope the media holds them to their $23k claim as hard as they hold Tesla to $35k.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

freeflight 8y ago

There are quite a few e-car models in that price range, like Citroën C-Zero or Renault Zoe. Tho I wouldn't really consider those as "Tesla rivals".

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>I’d be surprised if this was any good at all. Would have to cut corners everywhere. It's "engineering trade offs" when you do it and "cutting corners" when the competition does it.

aetherspawn 8y ago
It’s one thing to say someone cuts corners but in the world of electric vehicles you really can cut corners. For example, have no precharge system. Don’t monitor the temperature of every battery cell. No manual disconnect for the high voltage battery. Put cab heater on the same coolant circuit as the engine so that if you use the heater the drivetrain efficiency plummets (but not on paper). Use an electric vacuum brake booster so you can leverage cheap components from petrol cars (although every single one I’ve seen has been prone to early failure). Skimp on your front brakes/calipers because you have regen. Completely ignore battery impact protection. Use non automotive components that are only rated to 60C because you can on an EV and not necessarily because you should. Select cheap low voltage components with barely a safety factor on HV bus without considering that IGBTs derate approx. 50% during a solar event.

doodlebugging 8y ago

As a current VW owner and owner of 3 VWs at one point I can speak to how they cut costs. Between the 3 vehicles that I personally owned and drove we have more than half a million miles in VW cars. As you suggest and as any long-term VW owner can attest, they cut corners everywhere. From experience - some wire harness sections are minimum gauge for the load that they potentially carry creating a fire hazard; interior lighting may be reliable in some cars and bulbs may tend to burn out in other similar cars due to use of less expensive bulbs; plastic components do not survive many flexing cycles before breaking due to the plastic being very thin in the panels and especially in the attachment gussets; microswitches that control the door locks, door alarm and window switches tend to fail also. In addition, the headlight pods on the Beetle slide into the front fenders and should be held securely but over time the mechanism that keeps them firmly connected to the bulb socket develops enough slack that the pods can slide forward enough to break connection and kill your headlights. One or both will develop this problem and VW dealerships will gladly sell you new bulbs or new pods when the problem can be fixed by adding additional attachment under the hood so that the pod can't slide forward while the vehicle is being driven. It may sound strange for someone who has driven their vehicles for so many miles to be complaining about stuff like this but I also own vehicles from Ford and Nissan and have never had similar problems with those vehicles. My old Bronco, '92 model, still looks new on the inside with >300k miles and my '01 Pathfinder looks brand new with 230k miles. I currently own three Fords with a combined mileage >840k miles, two Broncos and one F150. I have owned and later sold 3 others in the last 30 years after rolling up more than 400k miles between them. I also have owned another Nissan that we sold years ago after racking up a lot of miles with no issues. And then there was the Saab, but that's probably just another Saab story. I just wanted to give real life examples from personal experience so that people could understand I'm not a hater who has no experience with the vehicles. I'm actually someone who bought one and loved it enough to buy others and drive them for a long time.