
VW plans to sell electric Tesla rival for less than $23K: source - prostoalex
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-strategy-electric/volkswagen-plans-to-sell-electric-tesla-rival-for-less-than-23000-source-idUSKBN1ND2C2
======
danhak
At this stage, no automaker will be able to seriously compete with Tesla
without securing 50+ GWh / yr. in battery supply. Tesla’s lead in building
such capacity is 3.5 years and counting.

Bidding for for LG’s scraps is not a viable strategy.

VW group has been leading the world in electric vehicle press releases while
Tesla has secured control of half the world’s lithium ion battery supply and
crushed every “Tesla killer” — Bolt, Volt, Leaf, i3, ELR - and is pulling away
from the pack at an ACCELERATING pace.

Time to put up or shut up.

~~~
callalex
If we're going to make fun of companies leading with press releases before
actual product, we can't ignore the fact that Tesla has been pretending they
can make a $35k car, when it has now been several years and their cars are
nearly twice as much as that for the cheapest model.

~~~
stupidbird
All of Elon Musk's businesses rely on government subsidies.

~~~
api
Good. Name one major technological innovation that was not largely or wholly a
product of government subsidies. The only ones I can think of were out of Bell
Labs and Bell was a government backed monopoly so they don't really count.
They were so profitable and protected they could spend like a government.

Nothing new is ever profitable until you get past the early prototype and
scaling stages. For big capital intensive stuff only government historically
has pockets deep enough to burn enough money to get big stuff off the ground
(sometimes literally). Rockets, jet engines, microprocessors, huge scale power
grids, the Internet, genomics, supercomputing, nuclear power, solar power, the
list goes on and on.

Private investors just have too low a risk tolerance and too short a time
horizon.

I actually wish this weren't so, but it is so.

It's also terribly hypocritical to bash Elon for taking government contracts
when everyone does it. Why do you think Amazon's HQ2 is going to be in the DC
area?

~~~
stupidbird
how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer
dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume (meanwhile he
prevents his employees from unionizing and suppresses injury reports at the
cost of employee health...)

~~~
fsloth
"how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer
dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume"

The whole point of subsidy is to encourage business in a specific area. It
would sound like it's working as intended, encouraging business and all.

Would you be happier if the subsidies were completely wasted on a non-viable
business?

~~~
stupidbird
It's a business that exploits workers. We've seen this time and time again
with Tesla.

------
jasonwen
Elon Musk won. This was his ultimate plan, to move automakers from fossil
fuels. They all made fun of them, execs from traditional automakers, but here
they are.

We have a lot to thank him for.

~~~
gamblor956
Oh please, Toyota and the Japanese carmakers started the transition away from
fossil fuel decades ago when they made hybrids mainstream, and California's
decades-old fuel standards system dragged the remaining automakers into
investing in hybrid, natural gas, fuel cell, and EV technologies.

California politicians had the dream of moving automakers from fossil fuel
even before Elon moved to the US. At least for this staed goal, they deserve
far more credit than Elon, a latecomer to the game.

~~~
spaceflunky
No. Toyota has a death grip on fossil fuels. While they did pioneer a lot of
hybrid technology, they are going kicking and screaming into full electrics.

But agree with you that this is a rare instance where California legislation
has had a meaningful and measurable positive impact on the environment and
technology innovation.

~~~
gamblor956
Toyota does not have a death grip on fossil fuels, they simply prefer vehicles
which use a fuel source that is easily and quickly resupplied. Hence, their
decades-long research into hybrids, natural gas, and fuel cell cars.

Toyota has made the bet that a car that takes 30 seconds to fill up (i.e., a
fuel cell or NG car) will ultimately win out over a car that needs to be
"filled up" (i.e., charged) almost daily over the course of minutes or hours.
Moreover, such vehicles can be filled up even in times of natural disasters,
grid failures, or scheduled/rolling blackouts.

~~~
spaceflunky
Your last statement is false for a variety of reasons:

1.) with sufficient research and decrease in cost, we can make it so that
electric vehicles can be "refilled" as quickly as fossil fuel vehicles.

2.) for 99% of trips, having 200 miles or more of range is sufficient. across
the aggregate of all trips made, it's very rare that people drive more than
200 miles without out a stop of a few hours in between. For those edge cases
where people go on long haul trips, you can either elect to have a bigger
battery or invest in dc fast charging.

3.) if you are optimizing for times of natural disasters, grid failures, or
scheduled/rolling blackouts I would actually pick an electric vehicle. How can
you fill up your fossil fuel vehicle when the infrastructure to harvest crude
oil, refine it, distribute it, hold it, and sell it has been knocked out? it's
easy to forget the massive massive logistics chain that goes into getting you
a single gallon of gas. Whereas, I can throw up some solar panels on my home
with a battery and have an renewable fuel source completely independent of
everything else that is good for hundreds of thousands of miles. Fossil fuel
just seems more viable because there is more infrastructure that has been
built over time, but that can easily be disrupted. Whereas you could set up a
windmill in the middle of nowhere connected to a battery pack that is
collecting energy for electric cars that barely needs any maintenance. You're
falling into the trap of assuming fossil fuel is "easier" because we have put
so much effort behind it over the last 100 years. When in fact fossil fuels is
an extremely difficult and disruptable energy distribution system.

~~~
gamblor956
All of your statements are false for a variety of reasons.

1) There is a roughly 15-20 year lag time between battery technology
breakthroughs and their appearance in retail products. As their are no current
battery technologies with meaningful lifespans, sufficient power output, and a
recharge time measured in seconds, my point stands that for the foreseeable
future EVs simply cannot compete. And that doesn't even take into account the
10-20 years of research into hybrid/fuel cell/NG technology to make those
vehicles more efficient.

2) Clearly you've never commuted in Southern California. Commutes of 100 miles
each way _aren 't rare._ SoCal is by far the largest market for EVs and other
non-fuel vehicles.

3) Clearly you've never lived through a fire or rolling blackout. A pump can
be powered by a short-lived battery at the refill site. Moreover, physical
fuels have this amazing property called "physical storage" which allows them
to be transported and stored entirely without the use of electricity. An
electric recharge station is dead without power.

3b) Good luck with that. By the time your solar panels have recharged your car
enough to make a trip to the corner market, a fuel cell car could have made a
cross-country trip. And back.

3) Windmills are high-maintenance. EVs are almost as high-maintenance as ICEs.
Engines are the most reliable parts of a car. The unreliable parts are common
to EVs and ICEs. And as Tesla has demonstrated, it's quite possible for EVs to
be even less reliable than the worse ICEs.

4) Electric charging would require us to make immense upgrades to the existing
electrical transmission grid, which includes finding ways to improve
transmission 100fold. That would cost tens of billions. Fuel/NG/fuel cell
based distributions systems are far more efficient because there are many
fewer "stations" that need to be built/upgraded to handle demand.

------
djrogers
With no timeline, no pre-production vehicles to show, no specs, range, or even
a rough outline of what one might get for $23k. Oh, and no batteries or
factories set up for this yet.

In what sense is this even a ‘Tesla rival’, other than the fact that it will
be electric? You might as well call a Golf an F-150 competitor.

~~~
browsercoin
don't worry. give them time, they'll figure it out. they've been building cars
for a long time, far longer than Tesla.

~~~
leesec
Well, Tesla has been building electric vehicles infinitely longer than them,
so

~~~
adrianmonk
VW has been selling the e-Golf since 2014.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf#Volkswagen_e-G...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf#Volkswagen_e-
Golf)

It's not a great car, particularly as it's an adaptation of a gas car platform
rather than a redesign, but it exists.

~~~
gsnedders
The e-Up! is a year older, from 2013.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
In 1976, Volkswagen made a Rabbit with a 20 horsepower DC electric motor and a
pile of lead acid batteries in the trunk where the spare tire would normally
go.

------
Jedi72
Why weren't they interested in making this ten years ago? Too busy cheating on
the emissions tests to care about something actually real like lowering the
carbon foorprint of your vehicles. Tesla forced these companies to do this,
plain and simple, so if you're going to clap this it should really be Tesla
getting the props.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Nissan was producing and selling a mass market electric car eight years ago,
when Tesla still only had the Roadster.

~~~
icelancer
Tesla didn't sell mass market cars to jumpstart the industry, because that's
not what the market wanted, very obviously. Elon correctly predicted the
revolution needed to be an order of magnitude better in all competitive areas,
not just slightly better or at par.

~~~
rohit2412
> Elon correctly predicted the revolution needed to be an order of magnitude
> better in all competitive areas, not just slightly better or at par.

I don't think they are an order of magnitude better. Elon currently predicted
that a personality cult and lies about futuristic capability sell cars

~~~
icelancer
> I don't think they are an order of magnitude better.

Elon didn't require rohit2412 to think this, fortunately. Just everyone else.

------
tbarkow
You can buy a VW e-golf since at least 2015. It's a great car, but by no means
a Tesla competitor. It retails for close to $30k, I got mine for under $20k
after the federal rebate.

IIRC, VW only really got into the electric car game as a condition of their
emissions cheating settlement. FWIW.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
GM and Ford made EVs in the 90's to satisfy California. It didn't do them much
good on the technology front.

~~~
samfisher83
GM made an electric car. People liked it. For whatever reason GM decided to
stop selling them and crushed all the cars. Mainly because the laws changed
saying they didn't have to lower emissions.Also gas was super cheap. There is
a great doc called who killed the electic car.

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

Source: I design electric trucks.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I’d be surprised if this was any good at all. Would have to cut corners
everywhere.

It's "engineering trade offs" when you do it and "cutting corners" when the
competition does it.

~~~
aetherspawn
It’s one thing to say someone cuts corners but in the world of electric
vehicles you really can cut corners.

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

------
siculars
“Exploratory talks” “...due to be discussed”

Good luck! Hope to drive one soon. But talk to me when they’ve pushed the
first one off the line.

~~~
zaroth
Talk to me when they have a concept at a car show.

Heck, talk to me when they have a rendering and a spec sheet!

~~~
013a
We've got renders

Notice how they all look like cars from Altered Carbon? And how the specs
mention autonomous driving with a retractable steering wheel, augmented
reality, and rear-facing front seats? VW will have these out by 2020 for sure.

[1] [https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric-
hybrid/id](https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric-hybrid/id)

[2] [https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric-hybrid/concept-
cars](https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric-hybrid/concept-cars)

------
martythemaniak
The e-Golf costs $30k and goes 125 miles and they're going to sell a 220 mile
range Tesla rival for $23k?

It's great that they want to make more EVs, but don't expect any car company
to have anything like that for at least another car generation (4 years?). Or
they'll ship something with 125 miles and call it a Tesla rival.

------
foota
How stupid am I for reading the title and thinking they were trying to sell a
company for 23k?

~~~
girzel
You're not alone.

------
ggregoire
I have no idea new cars were that expensive in Europe.

I mean, salaries there are not like in the US, 40k€/y (net) is already a good
salary, even for a developer. So you have to take a 5 years loan to buy a new
car? 10 years if you have a low salary?

~~~
BurningFrog
Europeans don't have an American standard of living, on average.

~~~
mamon
European standard of living is higher on average than American: afordable
healthcare, education, housing, good public transportation, social safety net
for unemployed, retired... US has some rich elite but other than that it's
basically a third-world country.

~~~
de_watcher
Averages aren't the point. In EU wealth is distributed more equally (see Gini
coefficient).

------
plink
I will be convinced VW are serious about this only if they intend to conceal a
NOx generator somewhere in the chassis.

------
walrus01
I'll believe it when I see it for sale, and not with a waiting list. Something
I can actually write a check for and drive it home.

------
browsercoin
I really don't think Tesla is going to make it out of this one. It's facing
it's worst nightmare which is luxury car makers as well as mainstream
manufacturers jumping both feet.

They have been building vehicles far far longer and have the experience.

Without Musk, I just don't see how Tesla is going to make it out of this one.

~~~
leesec
Make it out of what? A competitor several years down the road?

What are you talking about, and why do you think Musk isn't apart of Tesla?
Seriously stop spreading this nonsense.

------
Svoka
All I seen from VW so far is hybrids and empty promises.

Tesla is already selling fully electric cars and may be we'll get another
model until VW actually ship something.

------
JoeAltmaier
A commuter box is not a rival to a Tesla performance vehicle. That's a
linkbait title.

And even as other ecar source come online and fill out the ecosystem, Tesla
can still win by 'selling ammunition' e.g. batteries.

------
cmrdporcupine
I'm no Tesla fanboy (more a fan of GM electrics) but I'm skeptical for many of
the reasons others have listed but especially battery supply, and the history
of VW/Audi group's handling of EVs.

I'm sure they can make a Tesla rival that sells for $23k. But I fully expect
you won't actually be able to buy one unless you live in California or some
other place that legislates it. That's their history with the eGolf, which is
not a bad car -- but they sold less than 500 of them last year in Canada and
it wasn't because of demand.

~~~
Certhas
Battery supply is going to explode in the next years. But either way, this is
not like the eGolf situation of old. It's not an isolated experimental vehicle
sold in small numbers. They built an entire platform for building many
different models of electric cars.

People mistake VW trying to squeeze as much as they can out of combustion
engines for VW ignoring the future. Tesla forced their hand and has a real
headstart. But consider this. While Tesla was figuring out how to build a
single car at scale, VW has spent the last ten years figuring out how to build
dozens of models from SUV to city car from a joint technological platform [1].
And they have spent the last three years developing a version of that platform
for electric vehicles [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform)

~~~
growlist
> VW has spent the last ten years figuring out how to build dozens of models

..whilst also managing to squeeze in figuring out how to cheat emissions
tests! What a company.

~~~
Certhas
True but irrelevant to the point at hand.

Consider this. Total R&D investment of companies world wide, Top 5:

1) Amazon 20B 2) Alphabet 15B 3) Samsung 13B 4) Intel 12B 5) VW 11.5B

No other industrial company is in the top 10. Tesla is at a tenth of VW in
total R&D.

[https://www.ey.com/ch/en/newsroom/news-releases/news-
release...](https://www.ey.com/ch/en/newsroom/news-releases/news-release-ey-
worldwide-swiss-companies-invest-most-in-research-and-development)

