Electric Cars Threaten the Heart of Germany’s Economy

If you follow Volkswagen news, you can see that they are steady making progress and and have a very large initiative.

https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2019/12/europe-november-2019.h...

https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/porsche-taycan-reservation...

The plan to pre-build several parking lots full of cars before starting to sell predates the issues they face with the software. It was probably made with "let's catch any issues before delivery" in mind (which now paid off), but it's also because VW isn't a company that creates hype through limited availability and pre-orders: once the model is brought to market, you're supposed to be able to go the store and get a car in a few days or weeks.

Given that their previous models were quite software-heavy already, it's not as if this is the first time they have to bring software onto devices. I have no idea how often similar issues happened in previous roll-outs, but this is certainly the most closely watched VW model ramp-up in decades because of the novelty of them going all-in on EV.

All the VW Polos. And around the 20,000 euro mark you can get the majority of the VW Golf Diesel models and my personal favorite, the Skoda Octavia (made just across the border, in Czechia). The first and second-generation diesel Octavias were built like tanks, there are many example of them reaching the 1 million km mark, and the latest ones are pretty decent, too.

Electricity also costs a lot in Germany (for consumers at least), which offsets the savings on gas. Currently I'm paying about 30ct/kWh (Euro, so about 33.5ct/kWh in $) plus a 15€ monthly base fee. Gas is at 1.45€/l (or ~$6.14 per Gallon) right now. Last time I ran the numbers I ended up with a slightly higher cost per km with an EV compared to a normal car - before even factoring in the purchase price.

If you want to charge at a public charging prices sometimes go up 55ct/kwH, due to them having rather significant fixed costs for measuring power (each station needs to have a certified meter). This gets even more significant if you consider the fact that most people in urban environments won't have a house with a garage, which forces them to use public chargers.

It certainly will. Every fast-food restaurant in the US and most other countries will have EV chargers in the parking lot, with few exceptions. It'll happen extremely quickly as EVs go mainstream. Roughly 20 years from now I think there will be at least one million charging stations at such commercial locations across the US. McDonald's has five or six dozen charging units in Sweden as one example of the chains being eager to seek a competitive advantage. They've said they intend to blanket their locations in the Netherlands next.

i live in an island that is powered by an Oil power plant. it would be bad for the environment to use an electric car, power outages do happen, and the city is old and badly designed so that for the vast majority of people it's not possible to charge at home, they d have to add charging stations on every street.

i guess for the tesla's market - which is above average buyers - it is possible to charge easily. or it also happens to be their second car

Not really. An old mk4 golf will let you do 650km at 200kph on the Autobahn with 5m refueling time. But Germans are going hard after no speed limit so that will soon not be an argument.

https://www.electrive.com/2019/12/19/volkswagen-announces-id...

If you look at Tesla's Danish site for the Model 3, the Standard Range Plus has a WLTP range of 409km and costs 369,900 DKK. The mid-range ID.3 has a WLTP range of 420 km and costs 309,995 DKK.

So the mid-range ID.3 has slightly more range than a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus at a lower price point.

The lowest end specs you're quoting are smoked by the Model 3, but it's a car made for Europe where low range EVs sell just fine.

The high end spec has a larger pack than the Model 3. Most likely less range as Tesla does well at efficiency, but it won't be anything to sneeze at.

The ID4 is coming to the states. They're skipping their Model 3 and just sending their Model Y equivalent, which I think makes a lot of sense.

It will have a tariff applied, but still be eligible for the full 7500 credit.

They're not going to win over any hardcore Tesla fans, but these cars are a serious effort and they're going to sell well.

People have also been saying that Germany needs to 'catch up' and to follow the trend of American or British startups for 50 years and they've been wrong every time.

The German carmakers make as many cars per day as Tesla makes in a year. Over the next two decades, the majority of cars on global roads will still be non-electric.

What the German carmakers need to do is what they have always done. Slowly adopt modern technology while avoiding to buy into the hysteria of the week.

It's nothing compared to the fiasco they "suffered" through the Diesel manipulations

PS. VW is owned by Porsche not the other way around.

The EPA range is certainly disappointing. However, the Tesla and the Porsche have much different design goals and target customers. Porsche sports cars are not meant to be inexpensive and are not meant to compete in the mass market.

For example, the Tesla is strictly direct drive, the Taycan has a two speed transmission. Ratio is 15:1 motor:wheel in 1st gear and 8:1 in second gear. Compare the two cars at a steady speed of 120 mph (if any factory stock Tesla could maintain that speed for long). I'll make a stupid guess and say that the range of the Porsche at that speed is greater than any Tesla.

I know that's not saying much in favor of Porsche for most people. I, for one, have never driven faster than 100 mph in my life. But there are people that do, and there are others that have enough money that it makes them feel good to know that they can go that fast if they want to.

The Taycan is a niche car. It will probably not sell as many units as the Panamera, which is itself a niche car.

Nevertheless, your overall point is quite strong. So many new EVs, so poorly do they compare to the various Tesla models.

You want to always keep your profits at zero.

Ya. I'm in Canada. The total opposite. Vast stretches of wilderness between cities. Bitter winter cold. Darkness. And in many area less than reliable grid power[1]. If we are listed countries by the practicality of electric vehicles, Canada, Russia, Australia and Mongolia are in leagues of their own.

[1] We are having a windstorm in my area atm. Power has dropped out twice in the last few hours, only for a few minutes at a time, but at this time last year we lost power for three days.

https://www.bchydro.com/power-outages/app/outage-map.html

250ish different outages means about 35,000 people are without grid power in BC at the moment.

Personally, I don't think emissions test cheating takes your R&D from 3 bn. to 7 bn, so the parent's comment seems to be oversimplifying or wrong.

That said Ford's also focused quite a bit on hybridization of their more profitable models. The Explorer and Escape are now offered in mild hybrid options, with a FWD PHEV in the Escape coming Q2 to Q3. They've confirmed that the F150 will be receiving both hybrid and EV drive trains as well. IIRC the Mustang lineup will be receiving hybridization as well.

I never really thought about that. I rarely see station-wagons anymore these days. Great point.

I'm not sure we can blame VW for being slower to EVs than Elon Musk and FWIW, the VW company seems to be pivoting to EVs the fastest. The Taycan - a VW product - is the first car that's competitive with a Model S.

Edit: the gov of romania has already tried taxing old vehicles but was pushed back by the eu. Blind obedience to the eu and self blame wont fix your country.

Shenzhen has a modern smart grid designed to accommodate EV charging. It seems likely that BYD and other Chinese EV makers will quickly take over the global vehicle industry. It is the end of an era for european car makers, killed off by environmental regulation and penalties, and EV subsidies

Generation charges: $22.33

Peak Usage: 62kWh @ $0.29672

Off-Peak Usage: 258kWh @ $0.28243

Baseline Credit: 246kWh @ -0.0832

Total usage: 320kWh @ $0.2160/kWh

https://insideevs.com/news/362674/global-ev-sales-in-june-20...

Nissan is far down, below Tesla, BYD, BAIC, SAIC, and BMW. And that's sales number, not revenue, which favors Tesla even more strongly.

Tesla is, far and away, the global leader in BEVs.

Non-Tesla chargers are usually over capacity in Norway though. No manufacturers or companies have the guts to actually exploit the market dynamics here, by charging enough to get the free capacity right and building out more total capacity if a location is very profitable.

I do see your point wrt. national school holidays and other ("a few times a year") peak times, but I'm not sure this would be enough of a disadvantage to negate the positives of EVs (economically speaking) in the long term. A typical Model 3 stop will be 15-20 minutes (not 30) if you're able to stop at the right time, and some sort of peak rate could limit the demand at annual peak times if necessary. Roadside charging is only used for road trips when travelling longer than your vehicle's range, and proper EVs have a >400km range in the first place.

“The engine will cost $4000 to repair or replace. The car is only worth about $3000 so it’s better just to get a new car”

Engine replacements in cars are crap because all of the other bits and pieces are still wearing out. Meanwhile a new batter makes an electric car like new.

Have you ever seen an Alpha Romeo interior? Their cars ae unreliable but look great, inside or outside.

Porsche is a niche luxury sports car, comparable maybe to Ferari.

>Why is their knowledge so useless? Why are success and failure so intertwined in the tech industry? The right moment cannot be known exactly in advance, so attempts to forecast will typically be off by years or worse. For many claims, there is no way to invest in an idea except by going all in and launching a company, resulting in extreme variance in outcomes, even when the idea is good and the forecasts correct about the (eventual) outcome.

>Progress can happen and can be foreseen long before, but the details and exact timing due to bottlenecks are too difficult to get right. Launching too early means failure, but being conservative & launching later is just as bad because regardless of forecasting, a good idea will draw overly-optimistic researchers or entrepreneurs to it like moths to a flame: all get immolated but the one with the dumb luck to kiss the flame at the perfect instant, who then wins everything, at which point everyone can see that the optimal time is past. All major success stories overshadow their long list of predecessors who did the same thing, but got unlucky. So, ideas can be divided into the overly-optimistic & likely doomed, or the fait accompli. On an individual level, ideas are worthless because so many others have them too—‘multiple invention’ is the rule, and not the exception. Progress, then, depends on the ‘unreasonable man’.

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/

Safe from meltdown, uses existing nuclear waste as fuel, might be tested in China.

There might be 50% accounting drop in some reports thanks to all the biomas co-firing making coal plants ECO on paper, at the cost of freshly chopped European forests.