[snfosberry]

I went to my local nominated VW 'e-dealer' today to ask about the golf. 2 interesting points came out of the conversation..

- The first : Delivery of UK cars is slipping. They aren't expecting production to start until September and no cars before November.
- The second : They have 'no idea' when they are getting a demonstrator.

:-s

 

[Paul]

 

[Edd Beesley]

Cough cough compliance car cough

 

[Dean Hamer]

Shame...

Plays it back into Nissan's hands because by the time this golf comes out it will be playing a catch up game. I can see the leaf being released with a 40-50kwh battery with 6.6kw charging as standard this time next year.

 

[AndyG]

This is not a knock at VW, I own and love my Transporter but if this is not a compliance car why oh why are they not making a car with a much larger range. All of the old school manufacturers seem to be trying to keep EV's as short range cars probably due to the threat to their ICE "cash cows".
The sooner Tesla release the model E the better, maybe then the wind of change will then start blowing.

 

[AndyG]

Paul
My problem with all of the current ICE manufactures, that are making EV's, is they seem to be trying to keep the range around the same level as the existing cars on the market. Who have they asked in their customer surveys that told them we all want a car with a range around the 80-100 mile range. There is a place for that range level in the same way as there is a place for Limos and micro cars, but IMO the biggest thing stopping mass transision to EV's is lack of range.

I think VW are serious about EV,s but are still frightened about what the success of them will do to their core business.

 

[Paul]

I think VW are serious about EV,s but are still frightened about what the success of them will do to their core business.

I think this is true of many manufacturers, but it's like an alternative universe with Apple not releasing the iPhone or iPad because they were worried it would hurt Mac sales... These companies need a shift in attitude, the sooner the better.

 

[Edd Beesley]

In the eGolf edition of Fully Charged show Robert L has a big dig at compliance cars (the awful Ford Focus conversion with a huge battery in the boot) and then goes on to say how the eGolf is definitely not a compliance car, with the mark 7 Golf chassis designed from the ground up to allow both ice and EV versions.

If you think it's range makes it a compliance car that makes all BEVs other than Teslas compliance cars.

True, he did. He also made note of how VW had cleverly put batteries into different spaces where the gearbox, fuel tank, exhaust etc no longer needed to go. That's a little smarter than Nissan maybe, where there's a bunch of wasted space under the Leaf (there's a tunnel for an exhaust system...!). To me that still sounds like trying to fit an electric drivetrain into your existing platform, it's not ground up designing an EV.

 

[Paul]

Maybe they need to start making ICE components fit like batteries, rather than batteries fit like ICE components?

 

[Jon Clark]

I don't think the manufacturers are deciding on limiting range purely to protect ICE sales, it's just that 80-100 miles is all that's realistically possible at the moment given the cost of batteries. At around $400 per kWh, the Leaf has nearly $10k worth of batteries in there which is massively more than the equivalent ICE would cost. This is why the Leaf is already quite a bit more than the equivalent ICE vehicle. If VW were to come along with an e-Golf that costs £40k, nobody would buy it. The only reason that Tesla is able to offer such range is because the car is premium cost, so they have more budget for cells.

As well as cost, there's also the issue of packaging all those batteries without compromising practicality and the weight impact too, which ultimately will reduce the number of miles you get per kWh consumed. The whole thing is a juggling act and 80-100 miles happens to be the current magic number for a family sized car.

In time, hopefully cell cost, size and weight will come down and it will become viable to increase the range.

 

[Edd Beesley]

I don't think the manufacturers are deciding on limiting range purely to protect ICE sales, it's just that 80-100 miles is all that's realistically possible at the moment given the cost of batteries. At around $400 per kWh, the Leaf has nearly $10k worth of batteries in there which is massively more than the equivalent ICE would cost. This is why the Leaf is already quite a bit more than the equivalent ICE vehicle. If VW were to come along with an e-Golf that costs £40k, nobody would buy it. The only reason that Tesla is able to offer such range is because the car is premium cost, so they have more budget for cells.

As well as cost, there's also the issue of packaging all those batteries without compromising practicality and the weight impact too, which ultimately will reduce the number of miles you get per kWh consumed. The whole thing is a juggling act and 80-100 miles happens to be the current magic number for a family sized car.

In time, hopefully cell cost, size and weight will come down and it will become viable to increase the range.

Ignoring for the moment that as a consumer I can go and buy lithium today, one cell, at less than $400/kwh (and OEMS can certainly buy for much less than that) I do take your point about a £40k Golf. However, care to weigh in on why it's ok to sell a BMW M5 for £74,000 but they can't make an i5 for the same price? What about an Audi RS7 for £83,000? No E-Tron 7?

Let's bring it down a level, a VW Phaeton LWB costs £50k, why no VW Phaeton E? Let's go down even further, an Insignia VXR is £32k, where's the VXE? If an Insignia VXE is £37k (£32k after grant) and the starting price for an Insignia is £16.5k then we have £20.5k to spend on batteries. If we use your price of $400/kwh (£238/kwh today) that's 86kwh. Would I pay £32k for an Insignia with 300+hp and a ~250 mile range....? Why yes, I think I would!

That's pretty much what the Tesla Model E will be...

 

[Hoa Tu]

Ignoring for the moment that as a consumer I can go and buy lithium today, one cell, at less than $400/kwh (and OEMS can certainly buy for much less than that) I do take your point about a £40k Golf. However, care to weigh in on why it's ok to sell a BMW M5 for £74,000 but they can't make an i5 for the same price? What about an Audi RS7 for £83,000? No E-Tron 7?

Let's bring it down a level, a VW Phaeton LWB costs £50k, why no VW Phaeton E? Let's go down even further, an Insignia VXR is £32k, where's the VXE? If an Insignia VXE is £37k (£32k after grant) and the starting price for an Insignia is £16.5k then we have £20.5k to spend on batteries. If we use your price of $400/kwh (£238/kwh today) that's 86kwh. Would I pay £32k for an Insignia with 300+hp and a ~250 mile range....? Why yes, I think I would!

That's pretty much what the Tesla Model E will be...

Yep, it's all about not cannibalising sales from their ICE range.
The sooner the Model E is out the better it'll be for all of us as other manufacturers have to react.

 

[Edd Beesley]

So VW spend hundreds of millions on something they don't want to sell ?

Yes, because selling a few of them, even at a loss, reduces their fleet emissions level. It also gives them a lot of wriggle room on not bringing fleet emissions down further and faster, with the justification that "consumers don't want them, sales are low". Oh look our diesels are still selling well can we have some more exemptions for them please?

 

[Jon Clark]

I guess we could argue all day about the manufacturers' motives given that none of us actually know for sure, but my opinion is that the recent offerings from VW and BMW show real commitment. The e-Golf doesn't strike me as something that they've put together in order to tick a box and neither does the i3. They're both very nicely engineered cars that have clearly had a lot of effort and money spent on them.

 

[jontracey]

@Jon Clark I agree with you but I do also suspect that none of them really know what the public wants, so they are all churning out similar spec cars. Until they see evidence that bigger batteries or REX engines are what the public want they will continue to proceed cautiously.

It may take until the next gen tesla (e) comes out before they really see evidence.

I would love to see one EU car maker take the effort and risk to produce a car with a 200 mile real world range and test the waters

 

[Edd Beesley]

I guess we could argue all day about the manufacturers' motives given that none of us actually know for sure, but my opinion is that the recent offerings from VW and BMW show real commitment. The e-Golf doesn't strike me as something that they've put together in order to tick a box and neither does the i3. They're both very nicely engineered cars that have clearly had a lot of effort and money spent on them.

Well, I take from this:
http://okeevefoster.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/vw-egolf-laautoshow-23-smademedia-com-galleria.jpg?w=700&h=

that there is plenty of room to fit more batteries (and let's not pretend here, range is -the- thing people want more of. Less need for public charging, less frequent stops, less time spent on those stops, less concern about range in winter, less concern about resale), but for two things. 1) the will to do it and 2) the will and expense to actually design a car to be electric rather than bung batteries in spaces you won't really miss.

So whatever VW spent on their e-golf (and I am sure it is hundreds of millions, but every drivetrain option will be that expensive to get set up! At the sunderland tour we heard how Nissan manufacture a gearbox casing, send it to Renault, who then add the gears, ship it back to nissan, who ship it to sunderland to fit in the qashqai. How many millions did it cost to get that process set up.....?) it's not an exciting amount, or even a big investment for them.

 

[AndyG]

Sure, there's room for more batteries, but do you want the associated weight and cost? EVs are expensive enough as it is.

Yes that's exactly what I want.

The only way I will swap out of the Volt is when someone produces a car with a realistic winter range of +200 miles.

 

[Paul]

What you want the extra weight and the extra cost?

I personally would prefer to wait for higher capacity batteries and the same price.

If everyone waits to buy their ideal EV then the market would show no demand for EVs. We have to jump at some point if we really want it to happen.

 

[AndyG]

What you want the extra weight and the extra cost?

I personally would prefer to wait for higher capacity batteries and the same price.

If some one offered a golf sized car with a range of +200 miles for reasonabe money then I would not care about the weight, no one complains that the Tesla is to heavy and that uses todays battery tech.

My point is (and this is not just VW but all of the manufacturers) that no one is making forward steps and advancing EV car's to the point that it becomes the logical choice for most people.
The major stopping point to most people I talk to is not the price (within reason) it's the range. If ICE car design for the last 100 years had worked at the current EV pace then we would still be using a crank to hand start our cars!

 

[Lee Dalton]

I saw the fully charged episode with the e-golf and thought it looked good. However, the charging infrastructure needs a
Big shove before I would consider a full on ev.
If I could get something with a range of 150-200 miles that could charge up with another 120-150 miles of range in 20-30 minutes then that would mimic my typical ICE driving style of a 2-2.5 hour drive with a short break before carrying on.
I think they are getting closer with the range, but the charging is still too slow. Sadly tesla are the people that seem to be taking the charging seriously.