Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

The President of VW USA gave an interview recently stating the reason why we aren't getting the 3. One segment sells 60,000 cars the other sells 5 million. I think the ID.3 could sell great here and capture a lot more consumers than the typical market segment. Oh well.

It has been said -- many times -- that the actual major advantage of Tesla cars is that they get better over time by virtue of their software update process. While many many of the big players (VW, Toyota, Honda, etc.) are going to match specs when it comes to battery range and whatnot, I haven't seen any indications that any of them intend to follow suit with the software.

My 2 year old Toyota already feels like it is locked in the stone age when it comes to the software and features.

1. They're way ahead of everyone else in terms of energy efficiency. Compare a Model S or X to the Jaguar iPace or Audi e-tron - the Tesla gets 30-50% more range out of the same size battery. That's a big gap.

2. Super chargers - other manufacturers have to rely on really spotty networks of third-party charging stations that are unreliable, and add friction for their customers (have to have the right card and the right connector, etc.). Teslas super chargers are in all the right places, are stupid easy to use, and always work.

3. Tesla actually wants to sell EVs. The other manufacturers are hamstrung with their legacy product groups. They're just dipping their toes in the water trying to figure out how to make the transition without 'Osborning' themselves, or doing the minimum to satisfy California regulations. Tesla is all-in and innovating at a much faster pace.

Battery prices and range are on track to improve for the foreseeable future and most other manufacturers are basically preparing to massively increase production of the dozens of EVs they announced in the next few years. There are very few manufacturers left that are not fully committed to EVs at this point. Toyota, Mazda, BMW, Fiat, and a few others basically.

BMW already is signalling they expect issues with market share, growth, profit etc. and just appointed a new CEO to fix this. In other words, they are late to this game, they know it, and are now acting to fix this. I know less about Toyota but they seem to be very stubbornly ignoring battery EVs so far. IMHO that signals long term trouble for them as well. Unless they find a way to catch up in a hurry. Either way, they are late and the rest of the industry is not waiting for them. IMHO Nissan and Honda, are in much better shape.

For most manufacturers the key game the next ten years is going to be securing availability of low cost batteries with decent range while balancing that cost with the absolute massive cost of dismantling their legacy manufacturing and supply industry. I expect layoffs directly related to that in Germany may affect tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of jobs across the thousands of companies that make up the car industry and their suppliers over the next decade. BMW just announced layoffs for 6000 in Germany. My guess is that won't be the last time.

Tesla is where they are in the market right now because they decided years ago to produce battery packs in house and recently to also start producing their own battery cells. That gives them a cost and technical advantage. They have no legacy business and every penny that comes in is invested in more production capacity, lowering cost, and improving technology.

VW is investing tens of billions to catch up in the next few years. IMHO this is exactly the right thing to do for them and I think Dieselgate helped speed up the decision making. The ID.3 is an important milestone for them and when they start shipping this in volume in a few years, it will no doubt affect the rest of the industry. They are already talking about Id.4 and my guess is they are not stopping there. I think there's a good chance they might wipe out or flat out absorb a few of their competitors in the process. BMW for example. Meanwhile Tesla has at least five years and probably closer to ten years where they are basically enjoying volume and cost advantages essentially unchallenged. I'd be surprised if they don't establish themselves as one of the top car manufacturers during that time.

Few companies seem to bother coordinating model years with calendar years. I agree about the lead time, however.

And unlike VW and Tesla, Nissan has the production capacity...

Operating a car with touch buttons is just stupid, I can't feel any "haptic" from those and some of them won't even register anything. Getting gloves off and looking at some screen while driving isn't safe.

You have to switch multiple screens to do what you want. That's no good, it's only perhaps ok for things you should never do while driving.

So in your case it wouldn't matter whether there is a touchscreen or not, because you admit to not using it.

There's no reason a car can't have physical buttons and voice control

Anybody looking for a mid-range Golf/ID.3 type car (excluding top models like GTI/R/etc.) cares very little about 0-100Km/h times. In the same vein they also didn't announce the Nürburgring lap times.

Edit. Also based on the numbers Tesla publishes for the same car the difference between WLTP and EPA is less that 7%. Is it expected that in some cases it varies up to 15%?

30k EUR - 19% VAT = ~$27,750 USD, or $135 per WLTP mile.

SR+ is $38,990 with a range of 254, or $153 per WLTP mile.

The other pillar is used car sales. I'll never understand why car makers built a sales network fundamentally incented to NOT sell their product.

As far as most of the US is concerned it really is just Tesla to compare with for EV sales. (GM's Bolt maybe the only other footnote to that.)

[1] At one point Ghosn even tried to rebrand most of Nissan America's (gas guzzling, oversized) vehicles directly to Datsun in a strategy to make them easier to sell off/kill once EVs actually catch on in the US. No idea if that sort of plan still exists at Nissan Group post-Ghosn.

The reason why they sold quite a few number of cars is because they were the only ones in the market within their price range.

Why are they terrible? Mandatory battery rental, low range, expensive when compared to their ICE counterparts and no active cooling of their batteries which made them degrade a lot over a short time.

Those electric offerings were just some lazy attempts of expanding their product range to electric and they weren't true attempts to make a good electric product.

* https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/05/how-much-is-a-few...

This is something I can buy.

If they implement the longer range by adding more cells (which I assume they do), then that's your technical reason.

Of course, could also just be a way to get more money...

Or do most manufactures/models have battery cooling systems?

This was last true in 2016, when you could add a dual-charger option to your S or X to increase non-Supercharger charging from 48 amps to 72 amps (dual != double because of battery limitations). Would you mind citing your source?