19 ms·
Audi announces end of combustion A4, A6 and A8 models
- radium3d 6y agoThis is great. As an EV owner for almost 2 years now let me tell you you'll love the speed and savings See my energy usage and cost spreadsheet for details. Scroll to the right for the charts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16JLSzoWA0154ZUU3ahJ_O4LorGFFrc1defUCKisrGVE/edit?usp=drivesdk https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16JLSzoWA0154ZUU3ahJ_...
- dannyw 6y agoThis will become relevant to me when I can buy a second hand, fully-electric vehicle for $5000-7500.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoUsed Nissan Leafs and Bolts are abundant at that price point. Assume it’ll be a while before Teslas reach that used price point, eventually they will though.
- Scoundreller 6y agoLeafs are problematic because they lacked battery thermal management.
- whalesalad 6y agoSomeone in my neighborhood has a leaf with the license plate NORANGE
- cptskippy 6y agoEh... yes but no. The lizard battery chemistry introduced around 2014 addressed a lot of the issues with degradation and those issues really only came up in climates like Arizona and Texas with punishing heat. Unless you're driving a lot during extreme heat waves or DC Fast Charging regularly, you'll be fine in most climates. Thermal Management Systems are definitely better but it's not really problematic.
- throwawayboise 6y agoHow much range do you lose when it's 15 degrees and you have to park outside? And you need to heat the interior?
- cptskippy 6y agoFrom my experience, cold doesn't really impact the range in an appreciable way. Driving habits, mood, and behavior have more of an impact on the range than anything else. I have a 2015 with a heat pump, heated seats, and heated steering wheel so it takes very little to get comfortable. And it gets comfortable about 15 minutes faster than my old 2007 Honda Accord did. I can't speak for the 2nd Gen models but the 1st Gen models with the Sat Nav infotainment have a power monitor screen that shows how much power systems are drawing and how much range you gain when shutting them down. I've never seen a gain of more than 5 miles when 100% charged, it's usually 2 miles. Only one time have I been in a situation where that mattered and it was entirely my own fault. Another thing to consider is, that unless your commute consumes the entire range of the vehicle then it doesn't really matter as long as you can charge every night. I use to have a 50 mile round trip commute and I would charge on a regular 120v circuit every night when I got home, I never had issues. If I needed to run an errand I could plug the car in at work and come out with 100% charge at the end of the day.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- radium3d 6y agoYou can get a 120 mile range 2016 eGolf for a great price right now. Check it out. Bolt's are also going for very low cost ~$16-17k just a couple years old now.
- throwawayboise 6y ago$16,000 is 4x what I paid for my last car, a big comfortable Volvo.
- radium3d 6y agoHow much money went to burnt gas instead of your next car since you bought it though?
- wuschel 6y agoJust had a quick look. Did you compare theoretical (gasoline) vs measured (electric) values? The cost difference is quite significant. What is the error here? While I knew electric engines can be more efficient, I was surprised by these numbers.
- mlyle 6y agoThis is about right. A lot of comparisons are slightly off because they use the energy numbers from the car itself which leave out charger inefficiency --- which can be rather bad on Tesla --- but it doesn't change the big picture. On the other hand, you need to consider the amortized cost of the vehicle itself; both a higher vehicle cost and the likelihood of a somewhat lower vehicle lifetime. Maybe increased performance counteracts some of this for you? Further complicating things is maintenance. Oil changes are avoided. Brake pad changes are reduced. But tire wear is usually increased... And after all this, there's the convenience differences (both ways). You never need to go to a gas station for a normal drive. But road trips suck a lot more.
- radium3d 6y agoTo be fair, road trips wouldn't suck a lot more, you just get to stretch your legs after 2 hours of driving (or a lot more if you have one of the 400 mile range model S!) I'd hope you stop to pee or something after 400 miles of driving Lol
- mlyle 6y agoYou still have fewer choices of where to stop/eat and will be stopping longer.
- mrpopo 6y agoAn IC engine is 20-30% efficient depending on the technology (the rest is waste heat). An electric engine is 80-90%. Even if you imagine the electricity comes from a gasoline power plant, the efficiency at the plant will be higher than a regular car ICE because of scale benefits + use of a cold sink (ocean/river).
- symlinkk 6y agoI always find it weird that people who have enough money to spend $40k (minimum) on a Tesla care so much about saving $80/mo.
- radium3d 6y agoWhen I purchased the Model 3 SR+ the cost before tax was $32,790.00 including the Federal and State EV incentives in May 2019.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoSome of us spent a little more on the car partly in order to reduce cost of fuel not because the price of the car was pocket money.
- brummm 6y agoSo this is something I keep asking myself. The largest part of the savings comes from the fact that electricity is much cheaper compared to gasoline on a 100km basis. Now, the reason gasoline is so expensive is the massive amount of taxes charged. However, those taxes directly fund the building and maintenance of the road infrastructure. Currently, EV owners essentially get to ride for free on that infrastructure since they aren't paying gasoline taxes. Consequently, with more and more people switching over, the amount of taxes available for road maintenace, etc. will decrease and the electricity for driving will have to be taxed much in the same way as gasoline is and thus eliminating the savings early adopters are currently enjoying.
- durkie 6y agoI think you're right that the road tax structure will have to change as we move away from ICE cars, but I think the likelihood of electricity becoming more expensive is every low. Electricity is too ubiquitous, and its price should fall tremendously in the coming years (new solar projects being quoted at 2c/kwh and falling in several parts of the world)
- brummm 6y agoI don't think electricity will increase in price, but electricity used for moving a car will be taxed much like gasoline currently is. So the electricity used at home will stay the same, but the one used in car battery chargers will be a multiple of the price of normal electricity.
- radium3d 6y agoI think you're missing the efficiency aspect. Gasoline carries a much larger amount of energy so having a far more energy efficient, say in my example 26mpg going to 130+mpg saves a lot in energy cost as well. We do not ride for free. We pay an extra ~$100 a year (formula based on cost of car. I think it should be based on the weight of the vehicle personally. My Model 3 SR+ doesn't weigh any more than a regular gasoline car) for registration here in California which covers the road maintenance so no need to worry there.
- yurishimo 6y agoHow far is your commute? $200/mo for any decently efficient car is quite a bit. We use around $150/mo for a 2012 CR-V and my spouse has a 45 mile commute round trip in city traffic. This is Texas, so I guess I should mention gas is 30% cheaper than California. I suppose that could make up the difference...
- radium3d 6y agoYeah, gas costs a lot more here in California. I don't really commute a long distance but I do take my cars on road trips often and I'm the one who drives most often with friends (before covid anyway)
- cptskippy 6y agoI was paying ~$180/mo driving a 2007 Honda Accord on a 50 mile round-trip commute. When I got a 2015 Nissan Leaf, my power bill went up about $25 a month and I spent about $25 a month at charging stations.
- Hamuko 6y ago>let me tell you you'll love the speed and savings These better be some insane savings considering my car cost 22k€ and the cheapest Tesla available (2014 Model S with 279 000 km driven) is 38k€.
- radium3d 6y agoIt may be cheaper to go new with incentives vs used straight off Tesla.com, but I am unsure about overseas pricing.
- Hamuko 6y agoIt definitely isn't here. A new Tesla Model S (Long Range Plus) is 89,864 € and a new Tesla Model 3 (Standard Range Plus) is 50,560 €. If the 600 € documentation fee doesn't apply to the 50,000 € max price restriction, you might be able to get a 2,000 € incentive for the Model 3, which would bring it down to 48,560 €. For comparison, a new Mercedes-Benz C-Class starts at 38,750 € and a Volkswagen Golf starts at 24,400 €.
- anewaccount2021 6y agoAn interesting side-effect will be a potential market for crazy-cheap used ICE luxury cars. Once all of the high-earners demand EVs, the market will be flooded with lightly-used luxury ICE vehicles. A year-old Bentley for $30k? The day might come as long as you are willing to be one of the ICE dinosaurs!
- blackaspen 6y agoI think we'll see the opposite -- ICE vehicles are going to go up in price as collectors items.
- WillPostForFood 6y agoYou might be right for the high end (the Bentley example), but the middle/lower end of luxury isn't that interesting as a collectible, cars like a 5 series BMW, or Lexus LS, and could really drop in value.
- pureliquidhw 6y agoSeeing how manual transmission cars from the mid aught's are demanding a massive premium (like 100%+ on 1,3, and 5-series), I could see in 2045 ICE cars demanding a premium. Manual ICE cars even more so. But that's assuming they aren't projected to be illegal/heavily taxed by then.
- blackaspen 6y agoYep -- already they do, speaking as someone trying to find a manual BMW Wagon. The supply is already gone and has been for a while. The other comment in this thread on ever-smarter (cloud connected) cars too means that the market for not-cloud-connected cars is going to continue to increase too.
- Hamuko 6y agoMy first car was a manual 316i wagon. There definitely wasn't a premium back then unless you compared it to a ratty Corolla.
- btmiller 6y agoI just bought a PHEV from Volvo and I love it. It gives me the flexibility to roam around town on pure electric while also providing the range I need to go hiking in remote areas. A lot of the Seattle area only has street parking on residential streets. I'm curious how these folks are ever going to go full EV.
- e40 6y agoI live in a similar place to Seattle, and I see people laying charge cords across the sidewalk all the time. With nothing covering them, making them a tripping hazard. Just blows me away. This is ripe for insurance scams, but it is a genuine problem, for pushing strollers, wheelchairs, and pedestrians!
- Maarten88 6y ago> A lot of the Seattle area only has street parking on residential streets. I'm curious how these folks are ever going to go full EV. It is funny how people in the US expect exactly nothing from their government/city. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there?
- aaronbrethorst 6y agoI take it you have not experienced the consistent lack of vision or competence from the last several Seattle city mayors[1]. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there? I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive: no, no one here thinks that the mayor of Seattle would be able to do this. We have a mayoral election coming up in November. There's an outside chance that things might change for the better, but I'm not really holding my breath. --- [1] Excepting McGinn, who I thought got a really raw deal.
- posguy 6y agoMcGinn made a few cushy positions for his friends and did not get much done. Very similar to Greg Nickels IMO, who was only ousted after his cronies that ran SDOT totally bodged Snowpocalypse, followed by him coming out and saying he thought they did a B- job despite most of the city being trapped in snow for a week...
- costcopizza 6y agoI hope gassers are kept for a few of their high performance RS models. Their 5cyl motor is a beast, and the sound is an sensation no EV will ever top.
- guidoism 6y agoMeh. Put in some good subwoofers and you’ll never know the difference. :) I have been (only half jokingly) planning a electrification of an old 2-stroke Vespa or Lambretta and decided that it wouldn’t feel right unless it shook like a two stroke. So gotta put in some mechanical vibration and noise producers.
- the_gastropod 6y agoDon't forget the fog machine to leave a little trail of smoke behind you. Bonus points if you can put in a 2-stroke-exhaust-scent infuser in there!
- NullPrefix 6y ago>Put in some good subwoofers and you’ll never know the difference. Audi already way ahead of you. Speakers in the exhaust to match your mood. Can be controlled from your phone using WiFi, obviously. https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/2017-audi-sq7-fake-v8-exhaust-sound-isn-t-that-bad-107103_1.jpg https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/2017-audi-sq7-f...
- Laarlf 6y agoDo not get your hopes up. Governments have decided that ICE engines will get killed and that will happen. Have a look at Euro 7. Looks like from 2025 onwards the EU wont be able to buy ICE cars anymore. Even PHEVs will probably have i4s at max. That is if the proposals do not get scrapped. Which i doubt though.
- Hamuko 6y agoThe problem I see with these bans are that governments are subject to the voters and many voters have cars.
- x3haloed 6y agoSometime before 2030? Wow, don’t move too fast, Audi.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wongarsu 6y agoThat seems like a decent timeline to plan factory capacity and set R&D priorities. And once you have made those plans you might as well announce them if it's a topic that can make the frontpage of hacker news.
- S_A_P 6y agoIn car development cycles 9 years is pretty damn quick. If you truly understand the scope of how hard it is to build cars and completely switch your factory tooling and the capex involved you may feel differently...
- symlinkk 6y agoAnd how long did it take Tesla? It feels like these giant automakers are just slow and old fashioned
- aidenn0 6y ago... 9 years? Tesla was founded in 2003 and released the Model S in 2012. [edit] about 15 years to get to the monthly volume that the A4, 6, and 8 are manufactured.
- InitialLastName 6y agoFrom a glance at wikipedia, Tesla took 5 years (2003 to 2008) from founding to (limited) production of the Roadster, and were under no expectation to get money or build other cars during that time. Then they built what appears to be a total of 2400 of them. The Model S was announced in 2012 as their first "mass produced" road car (and they don't appear to have broken 100K cars in a year until ~2017), so that's 15 years to get anywhere near the scale of a grown-up car manufacturer. To reiterate, they didn't have to support other production in any of that time, and they didn't have to make any sort of profit during any of that time. To compare, Audi spits out ~2m cars a year, and can't just stop selling cars to retool their factories.
- perardi 6y ago“These steps are mentioned in a portrait of Duesmann, who has been at the helm of the VW subsidiary in Ingolstadt for three quarters of a year, in the German publication Manager Magazin. Specifically, it says that new versions of the A4 and A6 will be launched again from 2023 and electric variants will follow a little later, but that Audi does not even want to offer the mid-range models as internal combustion engines until the end of their life. Ergo, the end will be before 2030.” Um. That is not exactly an announcement. That’s an attempt to read between the lines of an article in a magazine that says Audi would like to start phasing things out, maybe, if the market and regulatory conditions are right. That is a far cry from an announcement.
- tgtweak 6y agoThis is certainly wishy-washy regarding timelines and commitments.
- tobylane 6y agoVW has (properly) announced that their end date is 2026. I feel like this is an accurate reading between the lines and it will be announced.
- perardi 6y agoSort of? https://www.thedrive.com/news/25299/volkswagen-says-its-last-internal-combustion-engine-will-debut-in-2026 https://www.thedrive.com/news/25299/volkswagen-says-its-last... The gasoline engines that debut in 2026 will be the “last generation” of internal combustion engines. Given the lifespan of these models, I think they’ll overshoot a 2030 target. (I will personally eat my hat if they can actually sell a profitable electric Golf-class vehicle in 2026. The margins ain’t there yet.)
- spockz 6y agoIsn’t the id3 profitable? Maybe not by much but I can hardly imagine them selling a car at a net loss. Edit: the id3 is the electric counterpart to the golf.
- darkr 6y agoIt seems a bit short sighted to abandon hybrids altogether. EV's are great for your average suburban/urban commuter, but they are terrible for long distance cross-country drives as you have to wait for hours for it to charge (presuming that current issues with availability to charge points in service stations are addressed). I once had to drive 900 miles in around 12 hours to make a flight (driving an Audi funnily enough). That journey would take _days_ in an EV.
- account4mypc 6y ago1. if you only drive far once in a while, then i think an ev is fine... you can always rent/take a train/miss a flight... might be worth it to save the planet :) 2. this is less and less true every year. a model s with supercharging only adds about 1.5 x on a really long trip (less if you stop overnight every 8 hrs as you should anyway)
- jedberg 6y ago> If you only drive far once in a while, then i think an ev is fine... you can always rent/take a train/miss a flight... might be worth it to save the planet :) Not a lot of people live that close to a transit station. That's why they have to drive a long distance. > a model s with supercharging only adds about 1.5 x on a really long trip (less if you stop overnight every 8 hrs as you should anyway) I have two adults, we trade off. We can easily drive 16+ hours in a day. Also, even on a short trip it adds a lot of time. I can make it from my house in NorCal to my parents in SoCal in just under five hours without stopping, but there is no Tesla that can make the whole drive on one charge. I'd have to stop for at least 45 minutes extra (that's a 15% increase). I still want to go all electric, and plan to do so as soon as someone makes a fully electric minivan, but I'm not going to downplay the inconvenience of electric.
- mmacvicarprett 6y agoYou can always carry a diesel generator in the trunk, problem solved.
- rsync 6y ago... which is another way of saying that there will not be normal Audi electrics until 2030. Another ten years of iMobiles and e-Tron Space cars and e-initiatives. Volvo made a similar announcement a few years ago and I see I cannot buy an electric V90. Or any actual volvo other than the little XC40 and their iMobile/eCar Polestar. We don't want your electric car. We want your car, electric.
- chrisseaton 6y agoWhat's the difference between a Polestar and an 'actual Volvo'? Just the badge on front? What's that matter? I think Polestar used to be literally a trim level, so they can't be that different.
- hasmolo 6y agopolestar is it's own performance group associated with volvo. they are extending out the base stuff by a lot, but fundamentally are rebuilding everything. checkout the polestar one to see what's up. imagine polestar is the same as dinnan for bmw, a close partner, but rebuilds the entire drivetrain
- chrisseaton 6y agoI don't think they're 'associated' with or a 'close partner' of Volvo... I think they're just Volvo, entirely owned. It's just a marketing thing. It's still Volvo.
- hasmolo 6y agointerestingly, polestar is half owned by volvo and half owned by geely, volvos parent company. polestar was an independent company until 2015. [0] 0: http://zgh.com/our-brands/polestar/?lang=en http://zgh.com/our-brands/polestar/?lang=en
- Laarlf 6y agoPolestar builds tunes for regular Volvos and 2 cars. The polestar 1 is a plug in hybrid coupe that costs about 200k and the polestar 2 is a model 3 competitor that is rather new.
- igorstellar 6y agoCar power plant is important, but also everything else is. I just bought ICE german luxury car just because there is nothing even close to it in the EV department. Teslas interior are falling apart and build quality is really poor. I also do not want to share telemetry. I do road trips sometimes and have no spare time to charge. Opinion: It seems like until there is something better than lithium batteries are coming up, EV market is just no good.
- bognition 6y agoWhere are you getting the data on Tesla interiors? I’ve had my model 3 for 2 years and there hasn’t been a single problem.
- Laarlf 6y agoThe Tesla Model 3 LR 2018 that i have driven rattled more in the interior than my 22 year old Volvo with recycled plastic in the interior that is known for rattling. I actually considered saving up for a model 3 because they look like interesting cars. But that drive turned me off so much.
- radium3d 6y agoThat's unfortunate that you didn't give it a chance. Next time try them out. My 2019 3 SR+ had a rattling issue with the phone holder mount. I brought it into tesla service center within the first week and they fixed it and I haven't had a rattle since. It's a great interior imo
- Laarlf 6y agoWhat do you mean "try them out"? I said I drove one and i did not like it. It is not just the rattling interior that i dislike. The pedals, the wheel size, the rear passenger space, the trunk space, no speedo and no HUD in front of me, the electrical shifter... it is just not a car for me, even if i would accept the worse rattling for a car that is literally 50 times the price of my car.
- sorenso 6y agoI suppose the other makers in VAG will follow since it's cars on the same platforms of many other cars like the VW Passat.
- wing-_-nuts 6y agoI'd love to go EV, but I rented apartments before finally buying a condo. Where am I supposed to charge? The greenest option I can realistically go for is a hybrid, but I'll probably wind up going for a regular ICE car, as they typically have much better acceleration than hybrids, esp at highway passing speeds.
- yurishimo 6y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted, but most apartments in the US are awful for EV owners. There are 3 in my building and they all share a single 120v outlet in the parking garage. They rotate who gets to park in the spot close to it every day. I would be surprised if they get enough range overnight to cover their commute. I imagine most of them supplement with chargers elsewhere around the city, but that's much more expensive than having somewhere to hook it up at home, even if it is slower.
- wing-_-nuts 6y agoYeah the HOA at my condo complex is ran by ... some older folks who aren't really all that tech savvy. I asked one of the folks on the board if I could put in a charging station on my parking spot, on my own dime. He laughed and said the HOA wrote him up for running a charging cable out to a battery charger to jump start his car. He said he highly doubted they'd be willing to allow folks have chargers installed any time soon. Bummer. I like the idea of owning an EV but that will have to wait until I own a SFH years down the line.
- GloriousKoji 6y agoI guess they're all downvoting OP for not choosing living in a house, routing another 240V line in the garage and adding on solar panels and taking electric car ownership seriously. /s But seriously, it's a problem. If you're not lucky enough to have free charging at work it's something like $1 to $2 per kWh at charging stations, which results in costing as much or more per mile than an ICE.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
- shocks 6y agoI just can’t fall in love with EVs. They don’t seem to have the same ‘soul’ as ICEs, which feel beautiful from an engineering perspective. I would happily have an EV daily, but I’ll always want an ICE exotic of some kind for weekend fun.
- hyperdimension 6y agoI think I know what you mean. Putting aside emissions, modern engines are a remarkable achievement, that's for sure. I'm relatively mechanically inclined, and I still can't help but to marvel at this machinery that can (albeit, rather inefficiently...) transfer chemical energy to movement. It's just a neat piece of machinery. ...Don't even get me started on the Wankel engine on the Mazda RX-*s!
- igorstellar 6y agoUnfortunately, some brands started adding fake noise engines through speakers due to NVH being too good: you just won't hear the engine. It's funny how modern BMW I6 cylinder powered cars are making V8 noises through speakers - consider it as a free engine upgrade lol :)
- ThisIsTheWay 6y agoIIRC even the high end V8-fitted cars like the M5 had fake engine noises pumped through the speakers too.
- GordonS 6y agoI test drove a petrol BMW X5 (something like a 4 litre V8, IIRC) a couple of years back, and even it piped fake engine noise through the speakers, a kind of "growling" rumble. It sounded so fake it was ridiculous. I almost felt embarrassed, even though I knew nobody outside could hear it!
- parliament32 6y agoThey're simply a different class. Just like a car will never replace my love for motorcycles, an EV will never replace my love for a screaming turbo ICE in a clapped-out chassis. They're neat, and I'll probably buy one at some point, but it's just not the same.
- mmacvicarprett 6y agoAnyone knows why only A4, A6 and A8 and not also A5 and A7 ?
- igorstellar 6y agoit could be because A5 (coupe) and A7 (liftback) are more enthusiast cars rather than your typical sedan. although A8 are way past commodity car.
- lmedinas 6y agothis is great news... i got an VW ID.4 this week and its an amazing good family car. VAG is definitely on the right way.