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Comment by clouddrover | Hacker News Reader

Perfect storms aside, I think Volkswagen will be the biggest producer of EVs within 3 years. They're targeting the high end with the Porsche Taycan, the Porsche Macan EV, and the future Audi e-tron GT which will be based on the Taycan's platform:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-double-taycan-ev-...

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-macan-electric-on...

Volkswagen's MEB platform targets mid-range vehicles and will be used for models across the VW, Audi, Skoda, and SEAT brands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform

https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-engineering-behind-vws-...

And Volkswagen is looking to license the MEB platform to other manufacturers:

https://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-wants-other-automakers-to-us...

Ford will probably license the MEB platform for their EVs.

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While I respect VW's ability to produce I think the limiting factor will be battery production. They've made some aggressive moves into it but I wonder if they can keep it going.

Especially if LG manages to block VW's future battery plans:

https://electrek.co/2019/02/21/lg-vw-battery-cell-supply-ev-...

It was shocking that LG trying to block them from building their own battery supply became public. I think if they don't get serious about battery production in the next couple of years, it will take a decade to catch up. tesla's lead and ability to make their own batteries with panasonic is a massive advantage. i went the auto companies to make their own batteries too. there will be a shortage of battery productions for 10+ years. And this was all predicted, i can't believe the legacy auto dealers didn't do a better job of investing in it just a little bit.

I hope something drastic takes place. Batteries are the only piece of "hardware" without any new discoveries in decades. Li-Ion I had in high school and it still drives my phone today.

Whoever finds a better alternative is going to completely change the automotive industry and mobile. I just don't hear about many researches being made in this field.

The next step for batteries is making solid-state batteries work commercially for their superior energy density and safety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik

24M has developed what they call a semi-solid-state battery and have delivered batteries with a capacity of 280 wh per kilogram:

https://xconomy.com/boston/2019/02/26/24m-lithium-ion-batter...

They think they can get to 350 wh/kg by 2020, which is a dramatic improvement over current EV batteries.

Tons of optimisation has happened and is happening in Li-ion tech. Musk is no stupid to go all in with it. He knew all other so called revolutionary battery technology are at least couple of decades away. At the same time, there is still tons of space for optimisation in Li-ion tech. The future for at least couple of decades, if not more, is Li-ion for sure.

All these Tesla competitors ... they are not really competitors unless they offer access to the Super Charger Network or provide something similar. More than anything the Super Charger is a game changer. Even though I very very rarely uses it, it enables the occasional long distance trip, making it practical to own just an EV and not need a 2nd car (or rent one)

Exactly. This is what makes Tesla so unique. It is not only about the cars it is also about the power supply - and don't forget Tesla's solar roof so that you can charge your car at home almost for free.

If you live in a place with net metering, once you've committed to buying a solar roof (Tesla or otherwise), using it to charge an electric car (Tesla or otherwise) has almost the exact same marginal cost as it would without having the roof. (The only difference is the imperceptible increase in electricity supply, and thus similarly miniscule decrease in cost, from your roof being connected to the grid.)

well they do, just with another brandname https://ionity.eu/en/about.html, BMW,Daimler,VW,Ford sharing resources on this just makes sense

Do you pay to charge?

Volkswagen owns Electrify America and Electrify Canada:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/

https://www.electrify-canada.ca/

And as another poster mentioned they co-own the Ionity network in Europe with other car manufacturers.

The Porsche Taycan can make use of 350 kW chargers for 80% charge in about 15 minutes:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/28/porsche-taycan-owners-will...

Since both CCS and CHADEMO are viable (and I think better than supercharger) and have support, building chargers is embarrassingly paralel if you have the capital, you could cover whole of US in a couple of months.

> Perfect storms aside, I think Volkswagen will be the biggest producer of EVs within 3 years.

What makes you think they stand a chance against Chinese manufacturers who face huge demand in their home market (whereas in Germany, EV are still looked down upon)? It looks like 60% of global PEV sales in 2019 will be in China - just look at all these models and manufacturers:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/24/china-electric-vehicle-...

Because the world car market is bigger than just China, because Volkswagen is the world's second biggest car company, and because VW is big enough to spend its way out of trouble (which is what it's doing now).

If the world worked that way, Microsoft would dominate the mobile OS market now. They had plenty of money and were the 2nd largest (by sales, 1st by market cap) software company when they gave up trying.

The Chinese car market is the largest in the world and due to EV popularity, by far the largest and most important EV market. If VW doesn't prevail there, they aren't likely to come anywhere near the position of "biggest EV producer". Perhaps tariffs will save the EU/US markets from getting dominated by Asian EV makers, but the Chinese market is decided for now.

Or Intel would dominate the mobile market for that matter. Instead they just ended up spending $1 billion a quarter for a few years without moving the needle.

Your analogy is flawed. Battery EVs are just another type of car. All the major car manufacturers make many types of cars (petrol, diesel, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, and full electric).

In 2018, 4 of the top 10 selling cars in China were Volkswagens:

https://focus2move.com/best-selling-cars-models-in-china/

In the future they'll just so happen to be battery electric Volkswagens.

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