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VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback
- andreygrehov 7y agoInfiniti goes all electric starting 2021-2022. I bet pretty much all of these car manufacturers are doing more or less the same shift.
- r00fus 7y agoThat's a surprisingly misleading phrase. Maybe "Infinity's first full electric starts in 2021-2022".
- andreygrehov 7y agoEhem. > 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.
- CameronNemo 7y agoIs it just me or does that seem low? How many ICE factories do they have currently? How many are they adding or renovating in these next couple years?
- AtlasBarfed 7y agoIt's at least a long-term economic commitment, not just prototypes or compliance cars. Those factory lines need production to offset the investment.
- ardit33 7y agoTesla has 2, so that's 4x in just three years. 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.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago> 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. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/gm-strike-highlights-how-shift-to-electric-cars-puts-future-auto-jobs-at-risk.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/gm-strike-highlights-how-shi... [2] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF11101.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF11101.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
- tomatotomato37 7y agoMost 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.
- njarboe 7y agoThe 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.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI think that’s actually quite a lot. Car factories are expensive and take a long time to build and optimize.
- pgeorgi 7y agoSome 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. https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-cars/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c...
- l1k 7y agoZuffenhausen 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.)
- chodeboy 7y agoAccording 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_factories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Volkswagen_Group_facto...
- jsight 7y agoTesla 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.
- pgeorgi 7y agoThe 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). Source: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Elektroautos-Im-VW-Werk-Zwickau-sollen-jaehrlich-330-000-E-Autos-vom-Band-rollen-4223448.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Elektroautos-Im-VW-W...
- AtlasBarfed 7y agoThis 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.
- d1zzy 7y agoI 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.
- NikolaNovak 7y agoInteresting - for context, can you share where these policies are in place? I don't believe the 6y new / 2y used is in place where I'm at.
- beefalo 7y agoI 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.
- windsurfer 7y agoWhen your sales revenue is $260 billion, something costing $30 billion is a significant chunk.
- treypitt 7y agoShifting 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
- pgeorgi 7y ago> 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“" https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-cars/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c...
- organsnyder 7y agoThat doesn't account for the energy used to charge the cars during their lifetime, though. Thankfully, in general the United States energy grid is getting less CO2-intensive.
- pgeorgi 7y agoThat's outside the car makers' control. 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.
- calvinbhai 7y agohow reliable are these projections? Replace VW with TSLA and the Tesla naysayers / TSLAQ will claim the company is doomed...
- meritt 7y agoYou'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? That seems like a fairly reasonable goal to me.
- beambot 7y agoInertia is a pain in the ass. VW has a lot of inertia...
- raaaaraaaa12 7y ago- hard constraint for VW could be to ensure there will be enough batteries from their suppliers - lacking infrastructure in cities
- calvinbhai 7y agoNot saying whether they can build or not. 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?
- 0xcase 7y agoVW is much larger than Tesla, has more money and already way over 100+ facilities around the globe. Tesla has 3
- calvinbhai 7y agoAgreed they are larger. But, VW has lied proportionally more than Tesla.
- Shivetya 7y agoJust a reminder, ID.3 will not be coming to the US. 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.
- r00fus 7y ago2 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?
- raaaaraaaa12 7y agoVW 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 :/
- lnsru 7y agoI 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.
- Invictus0 7y agoPlease try not to be so cynical. A $50B investment in EV is obviously not just a PR whitewash.
- lnsru 7y agoCompany putting defeat devices in millions of cars can do anything. I just don’t trust them, though I was great fan of this brand decade ago.
- krn 7y ago> 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.
- krn 7y agoVW'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.
- raaaaraaaa12 7y agoand they really need to have low average emissions... that's clearly defined goal which needs to be fulfilled.
- RegBarclay 7y agoA lot of their electrification efforts are penance for dieselgate.
- krn 7y agoElectrification 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.
- beat 7y agoI'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.
- sremani 7y agoThe unfortunately truth is many of the Electric Vehicles centered sites in US are Tesla fan sites more or less. 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.
- geerlingguy 7y agoHybrids are ‘meh’ to me. A ton of EV advantages are dismissed or tossed out the window once you mix in a gas engine.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- steelframe 7y agoI 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.
- r00fus 7y ago
- jojo14 7y agoThis 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.
- ravedave5 7y agoPorsche (a division of VW) is not vaporware in the EV space.
- lnsru 7y agoPorsche isn’t mainstream car. It’s a toy for riches, not for salaried employees. Edit: I was wrong. I could lease Macan for ~700€/month.
- ct0 7y agoPorsche 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.
- izacus 7y agoPorsche is in the same market segment as Tesla is.
- r00fus 7y agoLet's see when deliveries actually happen in the US. That is next year. Also numbers are unclear on how many will be delivered.
- BeetleB 7y agoPlenty of salaried employees buy Teslas, and Porsches are similarly priced. Anyone can buy a Porsche with a payment plan. Unfortunately, I know someone who did.
- bigYahnz 7y ago
- danhak 7y agoIt's worth noting that VW's 2018 target for EV's was 300,000 units. They fell 217,000 units short: https://www.wired.com/2010/07/vw-300k-evs-annually-2018/ 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-batteries-lg-chem https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508066/audi-etron-delay...
- dawnerd 7y agoIs 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.
- dsaavy 7y agoJust curious what region you’re in? I’m in the Southeast US and haven’t been able to find anything too far below MSRP for them.
- dawnerd 7y agoPNW. They were knocking them down pretty far. https://slickdeals.net/f/13163326-21-000-off-msrp-2019-volkswagen-egolf-w-driver-s-assistance-package-125-mile-epa-range-final-price-10-000-13-500 https://slickdeals.net/f/13163326-21-000-off-msrp-2019-volks...
- dsaavy 7y agoWhoa! That’s incredible, thank you.
- clouddrover 7y agoThe e-Golf is to be replaced by the ID.3: https://www.motor1.com/news/378009/vw-golf-8-production-details/ https://www.motor1.com/news/378009/vw-golf-8-production-deta...
- ohples 7y agoThis is an interesting video that talks about the issues facing the German car industry with the move to EV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcXjVxaKzv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcXjVxaKzv4 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.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoTypewriters and word processors.
- ohples 7y agoThat's a good one, thanks!
- dmode 7y ago"Tesla Killer"
- bigYahnz 7y agoI don't get how it turned out that ugly considering how handsome most of their hatchbacks are. Did every designer with talent leave vw group?
- blhack 7y agoWHY 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.
- mikestew 7y agoTheir vehicles are beautiful 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.
- simonh 7y agoMost cars are bland looking for a reason though. 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.
- viklove 7y agoIt looks like a Golf... It's a very classic design for VW.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- danans 7y agoPersonally, I can't wait for the VW ID Buzz (EV remake of the old VW Microbus), supposedly due in 2022: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a20733943/2022-volkswagen-microbus-the-electric-resurrection-of-an-icon/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a20733943/2022-volkswa...
- deckard1 7y ago> 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.
- Brakenshire 7y agoThe “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.
- clouddrover 7y ago> Americans still have reservations against hatchbacks for some silly reason. They're not selling the ID.3 in the US initially. Europe will get the ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjvgXWA78E 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-motor-show/volkswagen-id-4-2020-electric-suv-tests-alongside-id-3 https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-mot... Longer term they probably will make both cars available in both markets.
- umeshunni 7y agoReminds 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"
- novok 7y agoIt reminds me of software firms using rewrites to try out all the things they have been wanting to do.
- dmix 7y agoIt'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)
- aklemm 7y agoIf they need $50B to make space and then place themselves in the electric car market, then I suppose that explains Tesla's difficult task.
- szemy2 7y agoThis 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).