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1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. If this will hold up, Toyota will have leap-frogged their competition.

1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. If this will hold up, Toyota will have leap-frogged their competition. As a German, it kind of pains me to see how asleep at the wheel the German car industry is: too timid, too conservative and too slow. Edit: Although a bit of a bummer further down: "Toyota claims it will be ready for sale in 2027 or 2028."

deleted 3y ago
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Gareth321 3y ago
I'll be getting an EV when I can purchase one for $50k with more than 700 mile range. Then I won't need to stop more often than our gas car on road trips, and I won't have to worry about the cold/speed/altitude significantly reducing range.
tyingq 3y ago
I would guess the longer ranges benefit apartment dwellers, house renters, etc. People that maybe can't get reliable daily/nightly access to a charger. Apartments and workplaces could dole out stickers for access on specific days of the week or similar to spread out use of chargers.
- pornel 3y ago
  Existing BEVs are already good enough for city dwellers. Only hybrids need to be charged ~daily. BEVs have batteries 10x their size. BEVs last a week or more between charges. If you have a charger at work, supermarket, gym, or such, you just plug it in when you have a chance.
- freetanga 3y ago
  Or anyone that needs to do a 500-600 km every 2-3 months and is not eager to add 90 mins and uncertainty to those trips. I think is a fairly common situation in Europe, you might live in a city but relatives are away. You visit but don’t see the point of making a complex planning factoring cold weather, vehicle load, potentially broken chargers no your planned stop,…. And train is not an option if you are carrying a family of 5 or plan on moving around once you arrive. Why adopt a solution that is worse than the status quo?
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    At that point it's worth considering renting a car every 2-3 months for those trips, and get a car sized to your day-to-day needs instead. Of course that's also worse than the status quo (well, probably cheaper than the status quo, but less convenient), so I don't expect people to flock to that solution
    - masklinn 3y ago
      > probably cheaper than the status quo, but less convenient If it lets you get rid of your cars, maybe. If you also need a daily car (or even two), rental is not necessarily cheap, and beyond convenience it has flexibility issues. For instance the rental closest to me is a half hour bus ride away, and not open on the weekends, and the prices can vary a lot depending on time to trip or period, and obviously the type of car can triple the rental price. It’s worth it to me, because I can otherwise get by fine without owning a car. But if I need a daily anyway, it makes more sense to upscale it a bit and get the extra freedom. Especially if relatives start getting up in age and you never know when you need to pack up quick. It’s the same issue with timeshare vehicles, if people have kids they’ll all need it at the same time (because school schedules), and you’ll always remember when it was not available for an emergency.
    - dontlaugh 3y ago
      Rental is so expensive it compares poorly to owning a small 10-15 year old ICE car.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Similar sentiment to, “just rent a UHaul pickup instead of owning one just in case you need to move furniture/appliances”.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    It's not a 90min stop to go 500-600km in a lot of modern EVs. More like 10-20min. I just looked up a trip in A Better Route Planner in a Hyundai Ioniq 6 going on a trip around Texas, 495km trip. 4h44min total trip time, 8 minutes of charging. Do you really not take a 10 minute break in nearly 5 hours of driving?
mschild 3y ago
Too expensive is another issue. The e-up from VW is the cheapest one they sell. It's 30k, more than double than the combustion version. I simply cannot believe that the same car but with battery an e engine costs 16k more.
- speedgoose 3y ago
  Well, VW sells an ID.3 for about 16k€ in China.
  - tromp 3y ago
    That sounds wrong but seems confirmed by https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pricing-china/ https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pri...
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Cost of doing business in China -- the government sets the price. You either play by their rules or get shut out.
    - mschild 3y ago
      By that logic, they'd keep VW prices high. China's vehicle manufacturers have made impressive strides of the past few years, especially in the EV market. Considering the growing nationalist tendencies, they'd try to get there citizens to buy more wholly produced and designed Chinese cars. How does lowering prices on foreign ones help that goal?
    - reisse 3y ago
      Nah, the price is because EV market in China is very competitive. Tesla there still has the brand value and dominates the premium segment, BYD and the likes hold all of the budget segment, where Tesla has no offering. VW cannot compete with Tesla because it has no such brand attachment in China, so it has to compete for budget segment, hence the budget car prices. Best-selling EV in China after Model Y is BYD Yuan Plus, which costs ~20k USD. That's the niche VW has to compete for.
blackbeans 3y ago
Even in Germany the top selling electric cars are not German. Combined with the uprising of cheaper Chinese brands in Europe in the coming years, I fear the worst for the German car industry. However German car manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz also cooperate with solid state cell manufacturers (https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/220127-prologium.html https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/220127-prologiu...)
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Literally ever large car company signs a bunch of stuff with lots of battery startups. If any of this pays off is questionable. Most of these 'solid state' cell companies will have a very, very hard time. This is research level stuff not, making millions of cars with these cells anytime soon.
- fsh 3y ago
  The VW group has by far the largest electric car market share in Germany (~30 %): https://app.handelsblatt.com/mobilitaet/elektromobilitaet/elektroauto-vergleich-2023-die-beliebtesten-e-autos-tesla-vw-mercedes-und-co-/28975350.html https://app.handelsblatt.com/mobilitaet/elektromobilitaet/el...
  - blackbeans 3y ago
    Market share is a different measurement unit compared to top selling. From your article: Tesla hatte VW im zweiten Halbjahr 2022 die deutsche Elektroautokrone abgejagt. Nun verteidigte das Unternehmen von Elon Musk den Spitzenplatz. Der Vorsprung schrumpfte allerdings von 7400 auf 2000 Autos. Die Marktanteile der Marken lagen dabei bei 16,5 und 15,6 Prozent der insgesamt in Deutschland neu zugelassenen Elektroautos. See also in English: https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2022-full-year-germany-best-selling-electric-cars-by-brand-and-model/ https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2022-full-year-ge...
    - fsh 3y ago
      15.6% only refers to VW branded cars. VW group cars (VW, Audi, Skoda, Cupra,...) have ~30% total market share.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>1200km is more than enough. That's 560 kilos more than what Bill Gates said.
netsharc 3y ago
I mean if you want your German pride back, Mercedes has a car (exactly one, it's a concept car) on the road that actually does 1200km on a single charge, the EQXX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G7Egi36C4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G7Egi36C4M
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Concept cars don't inspire pride. If anything the opposite.
- ahartmetz 3y ago
  It's the coolest concept car in a long time. It makes progress in something that actually matters and it looks elegant, not like an oversized Transformers toy.
TheRealSteel 3y ago
It's funny for me to come across this comment now. Just 15 minutes ago I got home from driving 1,250km today in an EV. Yes, I am tired. Yes, I agree nobody should drive longer in one day.
dheera 3y ago
> 1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. No not really. When they say 1200km that's under ideal conditions. Put a roof rack, a kayak or two bikes, load it up with 4 passengers and a trunk full of luggage, and drive up into the mountains on a hot summer day with the air conditioner on full blast, and you're probably looking at a range of 400km. And your destination probably doesn't have a place to charge overnight. This whole "in one day" mentality is the problem. If you're going to the backcountry of death valley where there is absolutely no civilization, you want your vehicle to hold enough energy for your entire trip, not just for one day.
- mcswell 3y ago
  You do realize that if you do all of those things in an ICE, you'll get a similar drop in range, right? At any rate, most people never do all those things, nor do they go into some death valley. Because most of us don't like death. As for the charging places, yes that is an issue. I never had trouble filling my horse with that gasoline stuff, either.
  - dheera 3y ago
    > You do realize that if you do all of those things in an ICE, you'll get a similar drop in range, right? Yes but when most people talk about 400 miles of range in an ICE car they are usually referring to at least typical (==harsh, if you are in the western part of the US) conditions with AC on full blast and lots of mountains. When EV companies boast 400 miles of range they're testing it on an ideal track. Very different. I have a model 3 long range, advertised 358 miles, I get nowhere near that, more like 200 miles in realistic California conditions, which are (a) searing heat in the central valley in summer (b) mountains everywhere else (c) biting cold in the winter anywhere in the far north or far east part of the state (d) stop sign hell in the bay area which forces you to stop and go every block.
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> 1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. It's not necessarily about the range, there's also charging frequency. I personally don't have anywhere to charge my car where I live (apartment complex) so I have to go to my office building or my city hall/library, etc.. and of course pay for it, while I coordinate whatever errands I have to match the charging time. I would like to do that as seldom as possible.
hinkley 3y ago
Given the weight of the batteries, I expect you’ll see companies and customers opt for a battery half that size. The reduced weight will add a few percent to the expected range, so you might see a 600 mile battery with 45% of the capacity.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Gareth321 3y ago

I'll be getting an EV when I can purchase one for $50k with more than 700 mile range. Then I won't need to stop more often than our gas car on road trips, and I won't have to worry about the cold/speed/altitude significantly reducing range.

tyingq 3y ago

I would guess the longer ranges benefit apartment dwellers, house renters, etc. People that maybe can't get reliable daily/nightly access to a charger. Apartments and workplaces could dole out stickers for access on specific days of the week or similar to spread out use of chargers.

pornel 3y ago
Existing BEVs are already good enough for city dwellers. Only hybrids need to be charged ~daily. BEVs have batteries 10x their size. BEVs last a week or more between charges. If you have a charger at work, supermarket, gym, or such, you just plug it in when you have a chance.
freetanga 3y ago
Or anyone that needs to do a 500-600 km every 2-3 months and is not eager to add 90 mins and uncertainty to those trips. I think is a fairly common situation in Europe, you might live in a city but relatives are away. You visit but don’t see the point of making a complex planning factoring cold weather, vehicle load, potentially broken chargers no your planned stop,…. And train is not an option if you are carrying a family of 5 or plan on moving around once you arrive. Why adopt a solution that is worse than the status quo?
- wongarsu 3y ago
  At that point it's worth considering renting a car every 2-3 months for those trips, and get a car sized to your day-to-day needs instead. Of course that's also worse than the status quo (well, probably cheaper than the status quo, but less convenient), so I don't expect people to flock to that solution
  - masklinn 3y ago
    > probably cheaper than the status quo, but less convenient If it lets you get rid of your cars, maybe. If you also need a daily car (or even two), rental is not necessarily cheap, and beyond convenience it has flexibility issues. For instance the rental closest to me is a half hour bus ride away, and not open on the weekends, and the prices can vary a lot depending on time to trip or period, and obviously the type of car can triple the rental price. It’s worth it to me, because I can otherwise get by fine without owning a car. But if I need a daily anyway, it makes more sense to upscale it a bit and get the extra freedom. Especially if relatives start getting up in age and you never know when you need to pack up quick. It’s the same issue with timeshare vehicles, if people have kids they’ll all need it at the same time (because school schedules), and you’ll always remember when it was not available for an emergency.
  - dontlaugh 3y ago
    Rental is so expensive it compares poorly to owning a small 10-15 year old ICE car.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Similar sentiment to, “just rent a UHaul pickup instead of owning one just in case you need to move furniture/appliances”.
- vel0city 3y ago
  It's not a 90min stop to go 500-600km in a lot of modern EVs. More like 10-20min. I just looked up a trip in A Better Route Planner in a Hyundai Ioniq 6 going on a trip around Texas, 495km trip. 4h44min total trip time, 8 minutes of charging. Do you really not take a 10 minute break in nearly 5 hours of driving?

mschild 3y ago

Too expensive is another issue. The e-up from VW is the cheapest one they sell. It's 30k, more than double than the combustion version. I simply cannot believe that the same car but with battery an e engine costs 16k more.

speedgoose 3y ago
Well, VW sells an ID.3 for about 16k€ in China.
- tromp 3y ago
  That sounds wrong but seems confirmed by https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pricing-china/ https://insideevs.com/news/675842/volkswagen-slashes-id3-pri...
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Cost of doing business in China -- the government sets the price. You either play by their rules or get shut out.
  - mschild 3y ago
    By that logic, they'd keep VW prices high. China's vehicle manufacturers have made impressive strides of the past few years, especially in the EV market. Considering the growing nationalist tendencies, they'd try to get there citizens to buy more wholly produced and designed Chinese cars. How does lowering prices on foreign ones help that goal?
  - reisse 3y ago
    Nah, the price is because EV market in China is very competitive. Tesla there still has the brand value and dominates the premium segment, BYD and the likes hold all of the budget segment, where Tesla has no offering. VW cannot compete with Tesla because it has no such brand attachment in China, so it has to compete for budget segment, hence the budget car prices. Best-selling EV in China after Model Y is BYD Yuan Plus, which costs ~20k USD. That's the niche VW has to compete for.

blackbeans 3y ago

Even in Germany the top selling electric cars are not German. Combined with the uprising of cheaper Chinese brands in Europe in the coming years, I fear the worst for the German car industry. However German car manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz also cooperate with solid state cell manufacturers (https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/220127-prologium.html https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/220127-prologiu...)

panick21_ 3y ago
Literally ever large car company signs a bunch of stuff with lots of battery startups. If any of this pays off is questionable. Most of these 'solid state' cell companies will have a very, very hard time. This is research level stuff not, making millions of cars with these cells anytime soon.
fsh 3y ago
The VW group has by far the largest electric car market share in Germany (~30 %): https://app.handelsblatt.com/mobilitaet/elektromobilitaet/elektroauto-vergleich-2023-die-beliebtesten-e-autos-tesla-vw-mercedes-und-co-/28975350.html https://app.handelsblatt.com/mobilitaet/elektromobilitaet/el...
- blackbeans 3y ago
  Market share is a different measurement unit compared to top selling. From your article: Tesla hatte VW im zweiten Halbjahr 2022 die deutsche Elektroautokrone abgejagt. Nun verteidigte das Unternehmen von Elon Musk den Spitzenplatz. Der Vorsprung schrumpfte allerdings von 7400 auf 2000 Autos. Die Marktanteile der Marken lagen dabei bei 16,5 und 15,6 Prozent der insgesamt in Deutschland neu zugelassenen Elektroautos. See also in English: https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2022-full-year-germany-best-selling-electric-cars-by-brand-and-model/ https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2022-full-year-ge...
  - fsh 3y ago
    15.6% only refers to VW branded cars. VW group cars (VW, Audi, Skoda, Cupra,...) have ~30% total market share.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>1200km is more than enough. That's 560 kilos more than what Bill Gates said.

netsharc 3y ago

I mean if you want your German pride back, Mercedes has a car (exactly one, it's a concept car) on the road that actually does 1200km on a single charge, the EQXX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G7Egi36C4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G7Egi36C4M

panick21_ 3y ago
Concept cars don't inspire pride. If anything the opposite.
ahartmetz 3y ago
It's the coolest concept car in a long time. It makes progress in something that actually matters and it looks elegant, not like an oversized Transformers toy.

TheRealSteel 3y ago

It's funny for me to come across this comment now. Just 15 minutes ago I got home from driving 1,250km today in an EV. Yes, I am tired. Yes, I agree nobody should drive longer in one day.

dheera 3y ago

> 1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. No not really. When they say 1200km that's under ideal conditions. Put a roof rack, a kayak or two bikes, load it up with 4 passengers and a trunk full of luggage, and drive up into the mountains on a hot summer day with the air conditioner on full blast, and you're probably looking at a range of 400km. And your destination probably doesn't have a place to charge overnight. This whole "in one day" mentality is the problem. If you're going to the backcountry of death valley where there is absolutely no civilization, you want your vehicle to hold enough energy for your entire trip, not just for one day.

mcswell 3y ago
You do realize that if you do all of those things in an ICE, you'll get a similar drop in range, right? At any rate, most people never do all those things, nor do they go into some death valley. Because most of us don't like death. As for the charging places, yes that is an issue. I never had trouble filling my horse with that gasoline stuff, either.
- dheera 3y ago
  > You do realize that if you do all of those things in an ICE, you'll get a similar drop in range, right? Yes but when most people talk about 400 miles of range in an ICE car they are usually referring to at least typical (==harsh, if you are in the western part of the US) conditions with AC on full blast and lots of mountains. When EV companies boast 400 miles of range they're testing it on an ideal track. Very different. I have a model 3 long range, advertised 358 miles, I get nowhere near that, more like 200 miles in realistic California conditions, which are (a) searing heat in the central valley in summer (b) mountains everywhere else (c) biting cold in the winter anywhere in the far north or far east part of the state (d) stop sign hell in the bay area which forces you to stop and go every block.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

> 1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. It's not necessarily about the range, there's also charging frequency. I personally don't have anywhere to charge my car where I live (apartment complex) so I have to go to my office building or my city hall/library, etc.. and of course pay for it, while I coordinate whatever errands I have to match the charging time. I would like to do that as seldom as possible.

hinkley 3y ago

Given the weight of the batteries, I expect you’ll see companies and customers opt for a battery half that size. The reduced weight will add a few percent to the expected range, so you might see a 600 mile battery with 45% of the capacity.