5 ms·

Volkswagen to make EVs more affordable, starting with the ID.Polo and a new SUV

45 points by breve 1y ago

jgilias 1y ago
At least where I live EVs are becoming pretty affordable anyway, but in a slightly different way. 2-3 year old used EVs in great condition with good ranges are pretty cheap these days.
1970-01-01 1y ago
This naming convention is genuinely terrible. It's as if they took a slide out of an old Microsoft marketing PowerPoint. When will we see the ID.Silverlight, part of the .NET family of EVs?
- sokoloff 1y ago
  I’m not sure which half of the name you find terrible. I read it somewhat more positively (or at least clear in communications) as “ID. means electric” and “Polo” means what Polo has always meant in the VW lineup: their mini/compact entry-level car in the lineup.
  - delecti 1y ago
    How do you say it though? "Eye Dee Dot Polo"? "Id Polo"? It looks fine given that explanation, but it also needs to be words that people can speak.
    - piva00 1y ago
      The same way as the ID.3, ID.4, etc. are said: Eye Dee Three, Eye Dee Four, Eye Dee Polo.
    - alistairSH 1y ago
      I assume it's "Eye Dee Polo" - at least that's how I've heard everybody say the bus/van... Id.Buzz = Eye Dee Buzz.
      - balamatom 1y ago
        Then why fut a pucking dot in there?! What sucking fense does it make?
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
      In German, the ID is pronounced like "idee", the German word for "idea".
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        As a German, I would pronounce it as English I. D. It isn't uncommon for companies to use (partially) english names.
    - some_random 1y ago
      Either one seems totally fine? We got people saying "ay-ch tee tee pee ess colon slash slash" somehow, surely this can't be that tricky
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    That's Up, not Polo, tho (maybe that'll be what would've been called the ID.1?)
- rsynnott 1y ago
  They may just be backing off the ID.number thing. Their _old_ electric car name was the normal car name with an 'e' in front (eGolf, eUp); feels kind of like they're going back to some version of that. Which seems sensible, honestly; ID.3 through 8 either currently exist or will soon. Who's going to keep track of which is which?
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    By comparison, anyway, "Leaf" looks pretty good. While iSomething, or 'e', is derivative and quickly dated. Who would even think of naming a technology product iSomething as if you found this Internet thing just last week. A measure of EVS going mainstream will be that you don't name them anything distinctive. You name them like a car.
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      I get the impression that VW may be deliberately going for weird branding and styling precisely _because_ the eUp and eGolf (apart from the names) were _too_ car-like; they really looked almost identical to the petrol variants, and I think for about a decade people didn't realise that VW made electric cars at all. A lot of people thought the ID.3 and 4 were their first EVs. Hyundai also seems to have done well with their notably-weird-looking Ioniq series. It seems like, at least for the moment, the markets actually want electric cars to be a bit weird.
- Hamuko 1y ago
  Terrible naming and EVs go hand in hand. Tesla's S3XY is quite bad in that it's a shit joke and there's just a random number instead of a letter because you couldn't make it the Model E. And Cybertruck just completely breaks the form further. Audi decided to name their cars "t-urd". They also blew their load early, since the first EV they made was just called the "Audi t-urd", and then they had to rename it to the "Audi Q8 t-urd" when they realised that they were going to make more than one EV model. Mercedes-Benz decided that the electric version of the S-Class should be the EQS, the electric version of the E-Class should be the EQE, the electric versions of the GLS and GLE should be called the EQS SUV and EQE SUV, and that the electric version of the G-Class should be called the "Mercedes-Benz G580 with EQ Technology". Oh, and the electric CLA is just called the CLA. BMW's lineup is pretty inoffensive in that it's quite logical, as the electric equivalent of the 4 Series is the i4, the electric equivalent of the 5 Series is the i5, and so on. Except that the electric equivalent of the BMW X5 is the BMW iX when the electric equivalent of the BMW X1 is the BMW iX1. Oh, and the BMW i8 isn't even an electric car – it's a hybrid. BYD's electric cars also make no sense. Why does the same car maker have names like the "BYD Dolphin" and "BYD Seal" next to a car named "BYD Sealion 7" and "BYD Atto 3"? What determines whether or not a BYD model has a number in the name or not? And why is the fully electric one called the "BYD Seal" but the hybrid one is called the "BYD Seal 6 DM-i"? Rivian's makes sense so far, since they have the biggest R1, the more medium R2 and the compact R3. But going by this logic, the R4 should be an even smaller car than the R3. Either that, or the numbering has no bearing on where in the lineup the car actually falls, just what was released first. Polestar has that same exact problem that Rivian might have in the future: the Polestar 2 is smaller than the Polestar 3 and the Polestar 3 is bigger than the Polestar 4, and the Polestar 4 is smaller than the Polestar 5. And the Polestar 6 is probably going to be more upmarket than any other Polestar, except the Polestar 1, which isn't an EV. Basically, the number says nothing about the car except when it was first released. The Toyota bZ4X, which stands for "beyond Zero" (as in emissions) 4 (from the similarly sized RAV4) "crossover", is also just a downright awful name. Same for the Honda E:NY1. I don't know what inspired these two to make such awful and complex names for their EVs. And finally: the Porsche Taycan Turbo doesn't actually have a turbo. The "turbo" in the name just means "better" in the style of "TurboGrafx-16". Yes, I could rant about car names all day long. Don't even ask me about how Ferrari names their cars.
dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
A cynic in me would say that means that the new affordable Polo (~30k€) will be 10k more expensive that the current Polo (ca 20k)... On a more serious note though, Western car manufacturers used Covid for a massive price hike (30%?) arguing they have to do it because of parts scarcity, but once supply got to normal levels they refused to bring the prices back to the previous (or similar) price point so now they will be killed one by one by Chinese car manufacturers who - also mostly supported by their state - keep pre-Covid pricing.
- eptcyka 1y ago
  Prices never go down. Neither central banks nor business owners want deflation, do mountains will be moved to avoid it.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  I don't think they care. They are chasing the higher profit margins that come with selling "premium" models and sacrificing the budget market to the chinese. Another point about the id range; they rushed it out with half baked software and UX. They probably resolved most of this but it's disturbing that they would do it in the first place. Finally how much cheaper is electricity? Since 2020 the prices have more then doubled and the prices of charging in service stations are huge. I'm not sure that in the future private vehicles will be affordable as they are today.
  - dotcoma 1y ago
    > I'm not sure that in the future private vehicles will be affordable as they are today. That’s a good thing, if you ask me.
    - darkwater 1y ago
      Not in the way you think. We are going to keep the same, but older, ICE fleet running for many more years, unfortunately.
      - 1y ago
Thorrez 1y ago
Unfortunately they're not making the ID.Buzz affordable. And it's the only electric minivan in the US.
- bluGill 1y ago
  It is a safe bet that these won't come to the US at all. Those few of us in the US who like small cars are again out of luck. (though I have to admit despite preferring small cars I generally buy large trucks because the 10% of the time I need a large truck is enough that it is cheaper to use the large truck for everything and not have a car at all)
  - some_random 1y ago
    You can buy one right now.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      You can buy the buzz now. (Nice van, I test drive it but can't figure out how to make the payments... I got a used PHEV minivan instead which is in practice 80% EV) I'm talking about the id.Polo which I don't expect to see in the US. VW brings maybe half their lineup to the US (and none of their cheap brands at all)
- thebruce87m 1y ago
  I’m seeing tons of ID Buzz driving around here in Scotland. I have a theory that people who would have bought a Y are now getting a Buzz instead because of the obvious reasons.
  - threetonesun 1y ago
    It is both a much better shape in Europe than the US, and a better shape than a Y. Medium sized boxes are incredibly useful as vehicles!
  - stockresearcher 1y ago
saubeidl 1y ago
Between this and BYD, Tesla is so doomed.
- einrealist 1y ago
  Yep. P/E ratios - VW 6 - BYD 13 - Tesla 200 Tesla's valuation is absurdly crazy.
  - thiago_fm 1y ago
    It's a robots and AI company (with 0 revenue coming from those product lines)
mhb 1y ago
Volkswagen has some new naming scheme for some car. More news at 11.
thiago_fm 1y ago
Love my Polo, it's by far the best car of its category for what you get, with many ADAS features, very good infotaintment system. It's my first VW. VW software has improved a lot in the past 2 years, I went from a hater to a fan. Never dug the ID3 design, much less its internal panel and controls which are very crappy, similar to a Tesla. I still think it will have a hard time in Europe (it's biggest market). Most people in Europe live in apartments and locations where you don't have anywhere to charge. The people that have houses typically can afford a Benz, making it a very niche car. Until literally every supermarket has plenty of EV charging spots I doubt we will see people really buying EVs in Europe, even if the price is the same. China is a million miles ahead in EVs, they have chargers everywhere.
rayiner 1y ago
> A model like the Polo shows just how powerful a name can be,” Martin Sanders, Volkswagen’s sales boss, said, adding, “it stands for reliability, personality and history.” Did all the clever marketing people move to america.
general1465 1y ago
ID.Polo as an SUV? Polo is a small hatchback, if you want a SUV based on Polo you should use ID.T-Cross. VW you don't even understand your own naming, that's sad.

45 points by breve 1y ago

At least where I live EVs are becoming pretty affordable anyway, but in a slightly different way. 2-3 year old used EVs in great condition with good ranges are pretty cheap these days.

1970-01-01 1y ago

This naming convention is genuinely terrible. It's as if they took a slide out of an old Microsoft marketing PowerPoint. When will we see the ID.Silverlight, part of the .NET family of EVs?

sokoloff 1y ago
I’m not sure which half of the name you find terrible. I read it somewhat more positively (or at least clear in communications) as “ID. means electric” and “Polo” means what Polo has always meant in the VW lineup: their mini/compact entry-level car in the lineup.
- delecti 1y ago
  How do you say it though? "Eye Dee Dot Polo"? "Id Polo"? It looks fine given that explanation, but it also needs to be words that people can speak.
  - piva00 1y ago
    The same way as the ID.3, ID.4, etc. are said: Eye Dee Three, Eye Dee Four, Eye Dee Polo.
  - alistairSH 1y ago
    I assume it's "Eye Dee Polo" - at least that's how I've heard everybody say the bus/van... Id.Buzz = Eye Dee Buzz.
    - balamatom 1y ago
      Then why fut a pucking dot in there?! What sucking fense does it make?
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    In German, the ID is pronounced like "idee", the German word for "idea".
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      As a German, I would pronounce it as English I. D. It isn't uncommon for companies to use (partially) english names.
  - some_random 1y ago
    Either one seems totally fine? We got people saying "ay-ch tee tee pee ess colon slash slash" somehow, surely this can't be that tricky
- rsynnott 1y ago
  That's Up, not Polo, tho (maybe that'll be what would've been called the ID.1?)
rsynnott 1y ago
They may just be backing off the ID.number thing. Their _old_ electric car name was the normal car name with an 'e' in front (eGolf, eUp); feels kind of like they're going back to some version of that. Which seems sensible, honestly; ID.3 through 8 either currently exist or will soon. Who's going to keep track of which is which?
- Zigurd 1y ago
  By comparison, anyway, "Leaf" looks pretty good. While iSomething, or 'e', is derivative and quickly dated. Who would even think of naming a technology product iSomething as if you found this Internet thing just last week. A measure of EVS going mainstream will be that you don't name them anything distinctive. You name them like a car.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    I get the impression that VW may be deliberately going for weird branding and styling precisely _because_ the eUp and eGolf (apart from the names) were _too_ car-like; they really looked almost identical to the petrol variants, and I think for about a decade people didn't realise that VW made electric cars at all. A lot of people thought the ID.3 and 4 were their first EVs. Hyundai also seems to have done well with their notably-weird-looking Ioniq series. It seems like, at least for the moment, the markets actually want electric cars to be a bit weird.
Hamuko 1y ago
Terrible naming and EVs go hand in hand. Tesla's S3XY is quite bad in that it's a shit joke and there's just a random number instead of a letter because you couldn't make it the Model E. And Cybertruck just completely breaks the form further. Audi decided to name their cars "t-urd". They also blew their load early, since the first EV they made was just called the "Audi t-urd", and then they had to rename it to the "Audi Q8 t-urd" when they realised that they were going to make more than one EV model. Mercedes-Benz decided that the electric version of the S-Class should be the EQS, the electric version of the E-Class should be the EQE, the electric versions of the GLS and GLE should be called the EQS SUV and EQE SUV, and that the electric version of the G-Class should be called the "Mercedes-Benz G580 with EQ Technology". Oh, and the electric CLA is just called the CLA. BMW's lineup is pretty inoffensive in that it's quite logical, as the electric equivalent of the 4 Series is the i4, the electric equivalent of the 5 Series is the i5, and so on. Except that the electric equivalent of the BMW X5 is the BMW iX when the electric equivalent of the BMW X1 is the BMW iX1. Oh, and the BMW i8 isn't even an electric car – it's a hybrid. BYD's electric cars also make no sense. Why does the same car maker have names like the "BYD Dolphin" and "BYD Seal" next to a car named "BYD Sealion 7" and "BYD Atto 3"? What determines whether or not a BYD model has a number in the name or not? And why is the fully electric one called the "BYD Seal" but the hybrid one is called the "BYD Seal 6 DM-i"? Rivian's makes sense so far, since they have the biggest R1, the more medium R2 and the compact R3. But going by this logic, the R4 should be an even smaller car than the R3. Either that, or the numbering has no bearing on where in the lineup the car actually falls, just what was released first. Polestar has that same exact problem that Rivian might have in the future: the Polestar 2 is smaller than the Polestar 3 and the Polestar 3 is bigger than the Polestar 4, and the Polestar 4 is smaller than the Polestar 5. And the Polestar 6 is probably going to be more upmarket than any other Polestar, except the Polestar 1, which isn't an EV. Basically, the number says nothing about the car except when it was first released. The Toyota bZ4X, which stands for "beyond Zero" (as in emissions) 4 (from the similarly sized RAV4) "crossover", is also just a downright awful name. Same for the Honda E:NY1. I don't know what inspired these two to make such awful and complex names for their EVs. And finally: the Porsche Taycan Turbo doesn't actually have a turbo. The "turbo" in the name just means "better" in the style of "TurboGrafx-16". Yes, I could rant about car names all day long. Don't even ask me about how Ferrari names their cars.

dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago

A cynic in me would say that means that the new affordable Polo (~30k€) will be 10k more expensive that the current Polo (ca 20k)... On a more serious note though, Western car manufacturers used Covid for a massive price hike (30%?) arguing they have to do it because of parts scarcity, but once supply got to normal levels they refused to bring the prices back to the previous (or similar) price point so now they will be killed one by one by Chinese car manufacturers who - also mostly supported by their state - keep pre-Covid pricing.

eptcyka 1y ago
Prices never go down. Neither central banks nor business owners want deflation, do mountains will be moved to avoid it.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
I don't think they care. They are chasing the higher profit margins that come with selling "premium" models and sacrificing the budget market to the chinese. Another point about the id range; they rushed it out with half baked software and UX. They probably resolved most of this but it's disturbing that they would do it in the first place. Finally how much cheaper is electricity? Since 2020 the prices have more then doubled and the prices of charging in service stations are huge. I'm not sure that in the future private vehicles will be affordable as they are today.
- dotcoma 1y ago
  > I'm not sure that in the future private vehicles will be affordable as they are today. That’s a good thing, if you ask me.
  - darkwater 1y ago
    Not in the way you think. We are going to keep the same, but older, ICE fleet running for many more years, unfortunately.
    - 1y ago

Thorrez 1y ago

Unfortunately they're not making the ID.Buzz affordable. And it's the only electric minivan in the US.

bluGill 1y ago
It is a safe bet that these won't come to the US at all. Those few of us in the US who like small cars are again out of luck. (though I have to admit despite preferring small cars I generally buy large trucks because the 10% of the time I need a large truck is enough that it is cheaper to use the large truck for everything and not have a car at all)
- some_random 1y ago
  You can buy one right now.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    You can buy the buzz now. (Nice van, I test drive it but can't figure out how to make the payments... I got a used PHEV minivan instead which is in practice 80% EV) I'm talking about the id.Polo which I don't expect to see in the US. VW brings maybe half their lineup to the US (and none of their cheap brands at all)
thebruce87m 1y ago
I’m seeing tons of ID Buzz driving around here in Scotland. I have a theory that people who would have bought a Y are now getting a Buzz instead because of the obvious reasons.
- threetonesun 1y ago
  It is both a much better shape in Europe than the US, and a better shape than a Y. Medium sized boxes are incredibly useful as vehicles!
- stockresearcher 1y ago

saubeidl 1y ago

Between this and BYD, Tesla is so doomed.

einrealist 1y ago
Yep. P/E ratios - VW 6 - BYD 13 - Tesla 200 Tesla's valuation is absurdly crazy.
- thiago_fm 1y ago
  It's a robots and AI company (with 0 revenue coming from those product lines)

mhb 1y ago

Volkswagen has some new naming scheme for some car. More news at 11.

thiago_fm 1y ago

Love my Polo, it's by far the best car of its category for what you get, with many ADAS features, very good infotaintment system. It's my first VW. VW software has improved a lot in the past 2 years, I went from a hater to a fan. Never dug the ID3 design, much less its internal panel and controls which are very crappy, similar to a Tesla. I still think it will have a hard time in Europe (it's biggest market). Most people in Europe live in apartments and locations where you don't have anywhere to charge. The people that have houses typically can afford a Benz, making it a very niche car. Until literally every supermarket has plenty of EV charging spots I doubt we will see people really buying EVs in Europe, even if the price is the same. China is a million miles ahead in EVs, they have chargers everywhere.

rayiner 1y ago

> A model like the Polo shows just how powerful a name can be,” Martin Sanders, Volkswagen’s sales boss, said, adding, “it stands for reliability, personality and history.” Did all the clever marketing people move to america.

general1465 1y ago

ID.Polo as an SUV? Polo is a small hatchback, if you want a SUV based on Polo you should use ID.T-Cross. VW you don't even understand your own naming, that's sad.