VW CEO drinking Tesla Kool-Aid?
 

VW's EVs "will be available for half the price of a Tesla and just as capable" 15 months from now. Yeah, right.... ;)

https://electrek.co/2018/10/26/vw-ce...2020/?pushup=1

I don't see why not tbh, given the amount of resource VW has to throw at it. Their entire diesel research budget for starters :ROFL:

Someone (oh it was you! :D) posted a good article about it a while back, talking about while Tesla has good technology, they are still learning how to make cars in volume. One can't argue that VW has any problem with the latter, and Audi has most (all?) of the tech now. I think its really just a case of them figuring out how to make an acceptable amount of technology cheap enough to put in a Golf, and then sorting the battery.

I think we're not getting the model 3 until the end of next year? Given the pricing in the US it'll probably be £35-40K here, so can VW make an equivalent e-Golf for £20K by then? I wouldn't bet against them.

The mainstream manufacturers have been waiting in the wings, as MJ says they have the resources to make better and cheaper Tesla comparisons. It's only a matter of time really. EVs are still not my cup of tea though+++

I don't doubt they will be able to make some EVs for half the price of a Tesla: what I don't believe at all is that they will deliver the same capability in 15 months time.

And they certainly won't deliver Tesla volumes by that date - Tesla is now the biggest selling car manufacturer in North America by value.

Waiting in the wings is more like scrabbling to catch up - without any clear strategy on charging infrastructure or capability to deliver electric powertrain volumes. The next year will be even more interesting than the last two ;)

Totally agree.
As the months and years have spun by, Tesla has been building, in addition to electric cars and battery plants, an extensive network of chargers. The other manufacturers, as yet, have nothing. Nor do they have actual EV's, as opposed to vapour ware, that can credibly compete with Teslas offerings.

Tesla are neither the biggest selling Manufacturer in the USA let alone North America, nor do they have the highest revenues of any manufacturer. 17th by volume, 16th by revenue for Cars in the USA.

They may have huge market capitalisation, but they have bugger all cash left, huge liabilities and only squeaked a profit in Q3 2018.... and a whole of load of precedents pointing to a big fail.

Tesla got a march on the product, but haven't actually profited from it, nor are they likely too. The competition becomes so fierce from now on that Tesla will struggle to maintain a margin if they don't sort out their production, oh and did I mention the debt!

Here's the source Reffro, so don't shoot the messenger, even if I was talking about sales by value, not volume. ;)

https://electrek.co/2018/10/24/tesla...#disqus_thread

I'm surprised you think they're likely to have a big fail, given your knowledge of the industry: (some) people have been predicting this for years, and they're way more viable now than they've ever been - e.g. the margins on the Model 3 are higher that of those from traditional other makers - unless you're disputing that too - which is (one) of the factors behind their market cap.

Tesla -v- traditional car makers.
This person makes an interesting argument on the subject.
https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-bigge...for-themselves

Slightly off topic a wee bit. The biggest issue with EVs IMHO is the charging, take the West End of Glasgow as an example, an affluent, trendy, even bohemian area where one might think the demographic was a perfect target for EV sales. However most of the accommodation is in the traditional Glasgow tenement, albeit upmarket ones, where the average street can’t cope with the simple parking requirements of existing ICE vehicles. The flats will often have 2 or more cars with 8 flats in each “block” therefore taking up a similar street area to a decent sized detached house, so at least 16 cars require charging in that pavement space. Nobody seems to have come up with a solution to that scenario. Assuming this could be addressed the additional load on the National Grid would be huge and would it cope? To me it’s just shifting the environmental issues to a different sector. Then factor in the Glasgow Uni Students who enjoy a few beers of an evening staggering home amongst a tangle of cables etc..or just simply unplugging them for a “jolly jape” on their way home. Also until EVs can cover a similar "real" range (see recent What Car tests) and can be refuelled as quickly as ICE cars I can't really see the appeal. Of course the usual caveat applies; I am just a simple country boy and may not understand any of this+++

Yep, EV's are not a shoe horn in for everyone. But then why would they be. EV's are a new way of achieving mobility, and just like with the replacement of horse drawn transport, adaption will occur. There will be answers even for issues like charging at apartment buildings with on street parking. After all its not beyond us to have on street chargers, chargers at work and chargers everywhere else.

As for cable trailing around. Here you go, complete with an S8 parked on top of it;)

Increased power demand. Again adaption. We're not in a fixed system, it evolved this way over time to suit the demands and requirements of our society. It will continue to evolve. Glass half full here +++

This is one of the areas that intrigues me, with regard to the charging of EVs, as I once saw a programme about electricity distribution and how they control it. One specific example they gave was that they monitor what is on TV, so that they can determine when there will be a mass demand by millions boiling the kettle, whether it be after Coronation Street, the World Cup or whatever programme likely to have a large audience.

Are they going to be able to cope with thousands or tens of thousands of people plugging their cars in after returning from work?

This one I can definitely agree with, and anyone running LPG would probably agree. Whilst LPG has its advantages (cost being the best), it does take longer to fill them. It may only be a few minutes more, but it's still a case of waiting. The idea of waiting at a service station for a hour or more is daunting.

What's worse is running around in a small convoy with 2 LPG cars just trying to find somewhere that sells the stuff, then waiting while both fill up one after the other! :tuttut:

Hmmm. Not sure what you mean there Andrew. :rolleyes: Neil, would you know anything about this, as it seems to have slipped my mind. :ROFL:

Ok, I'll happily give you my views on each of these recent comments - from smoggy Kathmandu, where there's lots of diesel fumes, people wearing face masks, and zero sign of EV adoption!

Hope this helps...

(1) That's been a problem for years in London, and the solution is already being rolled out there: lamp post chargers - plentiful and already in place +++

(2) Not really an issue for 95% of miles covered - the great majority of drivers don't cover anything like the range of a good EV on a daily basis, so "refuelling" really isn't an issue. For longer drives, rather than "range" anxiety, it's more likely that the drivers (especially some of the, ahem, more "mature" ones on here...;) ) will have another more basic anxiety related to their need to relieve themselves on the trip :D. And/or recharge whilst recharging.

Oh, and I wouldn't regard What Car as objective, seeing as it's basically funded by ICE manufacturers - the reason it took them years to even mention Tesla. So of course the recent What Car article picked the Tesla with the lowest capacity and still managed to achieve a lower range than anyone who I know with one of those. Quell Surprise!


Spot on: as soon as the key players realised there was money to be made, the enablers to adoption started to come: For example, oil companies have started to install charge points at service stations. And in the new "car sharing" world we (well, "people"...) will be less attached to personal car ownership.

This assumes several things, such as a binary and one-way relationship between charging point and car: for example a lot of EV owners also own battery storage and solar panels, which is likely to increase, and some industry players (BMW for example) are talking about the cars themselves being assets in load balancing, with owners "selling" their energy back to the grid when surplus to the vehicle and needed for wider demand - sounds a bit far fetched? Maybe, but perfectly possible.

The thing that is key to this is thinking (and sometimes) acting a bit differently - but as Nick pointed out above, just as people did when horse-drawn carriages were replaced. And that happened far quicker than anyone expected at the time.

OK, that reads a bit better, but not much...that article is typical of the puff pieces that are written in the green press, throwing in lots of facts an figures without qualification.

The article first references the US market for Q3 only, yet then refers to a global total for deliveries. The revenues for the Model 3 for one quarter only are broadly correct, but it is only a 3 month snapshot and only reference the 'US Cars' which ignores the SUV's which are classed as 'Trucks'. FYI Toyota RAV4 had the highest revenue for vehicles that we would consider cars. Also Tesla's total global revenues are still less that what Ford generated for F-150 alone in the US.

The profits are a significant positive for Tesla, but in terms of profitability they are still way behind many global manufacturers who don't carry similar debt burdens.

My point is one swallow does not make a summer. Good progress yes, but far from definitive, at a point in time when a whole raft of competitor vehicles are primed to arrive.

Nope I have no recollection of such a situation at all :Confused: +++

Does the UK still not have its LPG infrastructure well organised? Still, when LPG is up near half the cost of petrol, the sheen is taken off the economical and environmental benefits somewhat (it sat at about 20% the cost of petrol here for a couple of decades, so the uptake was huge, especially for V8 owners in the carby days!).
You can dual fuel oil burners too, which a lot of people dont realise. In the case of diesel it's a true "dual fuel" in that the LPG supplements the diesel burn. I dont know the ins and outs of it, so I dont know how they get the gas in to the cylinders without throttling, or how they reduce the diesel injection, or balance stoich ratios (I would assume it's only feasible on common rail cars).

As for electric, I'm watching with interest. I like Teslas for their innovation, performance and style (Model X rear doors, what were they thinking?!). I dont buy onto their green credentials.
I also dont like self drive tech. I do have a bias in this regard though.
We do need to reduce our CO2 footprint and a huge uptake on electric vehicles could force our respectively hopeless governments to actually govern on behalf of their people (Yes, I've heard all the PM jokes...;))

It is immensely more complicated to convert diesels, as I found out when I spent several years of my life developing this about 10 years ago (you can see a detailed explanation of our solution and the technical difficulties in the owner's manual here). I've never been involved in the physical/mechanical conversion side of things (my business partner does that) but I believe the injectors have 'straws' on the end, which enables the gas to be injected closer to the inlet valves (to minimise 'robbing' of the gas by adjacent cylinders).

The diesel reduction is, to some extent, automatic. Most diesel ECUs will reduce the diesel injected in response to the feedback they receive from sensors when a secondary fuel is introduced. However, for greater levels of substitution, it's usually necessary to remap the diesel ECU. Injecting the right amount of gas is the biggest challenge. Pretty much every system in existence uses an independent gas ECU that has to be custom mapped to the engine and requires connectivity to much of the same sensors that the diesel ECU does. Compare that to the older LPG kits installed on conventional petrol fuel injection systems, which are merely 'following systems'. All they had to do was to proportionately copy and reproduce the petrol injection output.

The problem with modern common-rail diesels is that the injection timing is very complex, and varies a lot from system to system. Unlike the conventional indirect-injection petrol systems of yesteryear, which just squirt an amount of fuel (determined by a simple square-wave duty-cycle), modern direct-injection diesel systems inject many small pulses of fuel (some just a few microseconds long), at different times in the cycle and for various reasons (some are tiny 'pilot' pusles, for example, that reduce diesel 'clatter' under certain conditions). Deciphering all that was the challenge in designing the system I developed, to make something which could 'universally' determine how much diesel was being injected at any moment with a minimal amount of information (just fuel rail pressure and a current-flow signal from a single diesel injector). It took a huge amount of complex calculations, 60,000+ lines of code and a many, many late nights. :eek3:

Very impressive Mark.
Nice to 'speak' to someone who actually knows the technology.
You mentioned that the diesel dual fuel system uses gas injectors with the straws.
That will be similar if not the same as the LPG liquid injectors now available for petrol engines. They inject right onto the valves like a port injection system does. There would be a slight vacuum caused by the cylinder draw whilst the valve is open on a diesel.
That injector technology is only about 10-15 years old, so must have been pretty new when you developed your little black box.
The only time I've come across this system is on a previous generation Hilux.

As you may know, LPG has quite a high octane rating (120 RON or so), and the liquid injection technology has allowed more precise metering of fuel using the engines own ECU (piggybacked) to actually generate a higher power output than its petrol equivalent.
I have a mate with a Holden VE Commodore SS 6.0 with this type of system, and on gas its easily quicker than the S8 (when he can get traction :tuttut:).

Sorry to hijack the thread Tintin... as you were!

I believe so. But while you would typically only substitute about 20% (if I remember our results correctly) of the diesel with LPG, it's theoretically possible to do 100% substitution with direct injection petrol conversions. I say 'theoretically' because the problem with direct-injection petrol systems is that, because the injector tip sits inside the combustion chamber, they can overheat without the cooling effect of the petrol passing through them. So for that reason, many direct injection petrol LPG systems allow petrol to be injected every 'X' number of cycles.

Here in Northern Ireland and in the rest of Ireland, the LPG pumps tend to be situated well away from the main pumps, almost as if it an embarrassment having them. On the few times I filled up with LPG in the rest of the UK, the LPG pumps are integrated along with the petrol and diesel ones.

As for the economical benefits, to this day, I still don't understand why more people don't get their cars converted, when the savings are (for me anyway) almost 50%, and my conversion paid for itself in less than a year and 10k miles.

Now if Mark could develop a similar system to his Select-a-map to work on my S8...

Sounds like there is a system to work with FSI from what Mark was saying, just not his!
Liquid injection LPG technology is great for petrol engines. Cool dense charge + higher octane = more power + cheaper to run!
I just dont want the hassle of the large tank in my boot.
I had LPG in an old Commodore once, it was fiddly, agricultural (both in installation and operation) and robbed half the boot. The modern systems are far better I'm sure, but the government subsidies here arent that great for an $8k+ conversion and I only do 10,000km a year in the old girl, so it would take years to reap any economical benefit.

Gets complicated doesn't it!
So the cooling effect of sub zero LPG expansion prior to combustion isn't sufficient to cool them?
You used to get problems with seals drying out and making petrol unreliable in carbys, that's partly why you used to start up and shut down on petrol, and I used to generally run for a day a week on petrol too (freezing converters was another reason for using petrol on start up to running temp - coolant hoses heated the converter)

I find your last reply on this a bit confusing (confused? ;) ) Reffro.

Firstly, you seem to have conceded the point that they are the biggest selling car (not "truck", or whatever the US call the F-150 types of pick-ups etc, which isn't really relevant in other major territories, or to Tesla) in the US, using US data. You then seem to suggest that the data is simplistic or inaccurate is some way, though it looked to me like it was referencing industry data in the table that I posted. Which is it? Maybe you could clarify to help those of use who (unlike you) don't work with this data daily and sell it to the established ICE car sellers?.

Secondly, in your reply you've not disputed or mentioned my comment about Tesla being more profitable than any other manufacturer, yet your original point seemed to at least imply that they couldn't make a profit and were going to fail? -

Thirdly, your point about debt is interesting, but again feels a bit selective really, as you've not mentioned the fact that - unlike Tesla - other major US companies had to be rescued from going under by government bailouts, costing tens of billions.

https://www.thebalance.com/auto-indu...rysler-3305670

So, whilst Tesla might have been on shaky ground in the early days (around when I ordered my Model S :eek: ), I think it's hard to argue that this is the case any more.

However, the ICE supply chains, including the big manufacturing plants and the retail chains that got fat and lazy over the last decade, are the ones who will really struggle to adapt and should have acted sooner, but were too arrogant to do so.

So I hardly think your "swallow analogy" is relevant. Tesla isn't coming, it's here now,and the US is just a preview of what they will also do in Europe and the Far East. Others just aren't ready, and I'm not sure what "primed to arrive" means in practice - only JLR have actually launched a comparable EV, and are struggling with their production, as they haven't sorted out their supply chain: the others are slower and have been much worse at actually making this happen.

So to quote this latest Autocar Tesla review:

"Any rival wanting to beat the Model 3 is going to have to be very good indeed"

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review...yY9ZzeS8dDDnws

OK, in the USA, the market is separated between Cars and Trucks. Cars are just that, Trucks include both Pickups/Vans and most importantly SUV's. SUV's are considered to be Cars everywhere else, so if you read the article and think that they are comparing apples with apples with a global view of the markets (or even a British view), you'd be misled. If you include the SUV's in your analysis of Car sales/revenue, which I would, then Model 3 got trumped by RAV4 in both sales and revenue.

OK, lets put this to bed. Tesla are not the most profitable OEM and they are not even close. The article talks about margin on the Model 3, not profit. Yes , Tesla have reported great margins on the Model 3, they produced in Q3 2018, but they sold far fewer vehicles overall.

By the way this is what Porsche did for a great many years, small numbers with huge margins. But Porsche did it without the debt mountain, so didn't need to meet junk bond debt repayments etc etc.

Tesla were only building the Roadster at about the time the bailouts happened. GM and Chrysler took billions, Ford didn't need to, but did receive some loans. GM and Chrysler are seen as being to big to be allowed to fail, Tesla probably isn't...In the event of a default on existing debt, the company may continue is some form or other, but it will be investors and banks that end up taking a haircut.

At the time you ordered your car I could argue Tesla were in a far better financial situation, as they have continued to burn through loans and investors' cash since then.

Possibly or even probably, but the big OEM's are going to adapt or die. Hence the competition is only going to get more intense. Tesla's revenues are built on the fact that they are selling highly optioned Model 3 cars, not the $35,000 car they promoted, it remains to be seen how many people who got on board with the deposits, will continue with a purchase of a vehicle at $60,000+.

I'm not arguing the Model 3 is not a good car. It is, but then again the car reviewed is not $35,000 and is not on sale anywhere but the USA for now. Jaguar do seem to be struggling, but then so did Tesla, hence the recently announced FBI investigations, which I don't believe will come to much, but do highlight the struggles Tesla had, particularly when they kept promising so much.

I avoided the use of flash in the pan and went with one swallow instead. Others are struggling, Tesla is still not meeting its own bold projections, remember that people who put a deposit on a Model 3 in the UK were to have started to receive their cars by now.....Reading the website today and understanding how they have made similar promises in the past, you are looking at 2020 before they get here, with no mention of pricing yet.

There are still many challenges to be overcome, I'm of the opinion that they are only going to get bigger.

Oh dear. It looks like you're keen to continue the to'ing and fro'ing on this thread, without really getting the original point of it, which is that Tesla has succeeded in completely changing the game on this, and is also - as a company - succeeding way beyond where 99% of people thought they would get to.

I'm happy that I've dealt with your original point below, and that your comments since then haven't really made any difference to the core point in my original post, and also that I've dealt with those comments too: I could continue this by explaining why margin vs profit isn't a significant difference for Tesla, give details of how Ford downsized to deal with it's strategic errors in the same bailout decade, point out why a RAV4 isn't really relevant to Tesla, or that the Porsche/VW relationship makes the Porsche comparison a bit "apples and pears" ;), or any of your other small points of detail in your last post, but I'm not sure that's going to make any real difference to you (and will probably bore everyone else on here :tuttut: ).

I'll just say this to close this - when I ordered my Model S in 2015, the threats to Tesla were existential, not operational, and VAG was talking about investing 20Bn+ in new ICE products. That's completely changed now, there will be fallout from existing ICE manufacturers, Tesla won't be going away, and the car industry is completely changing as a result of them.

Maybe if you turn up to our annual meet one year we can continue this discussion over a beer - but I think the automotive world may have moved a long way by then, and you may be driving an EV :ROFL:

If I'm free to join, I would look forward to sharing a beer with you as always.+++

As for the EV, not going to happen for me and a great many people, now or in the near future, I don't have a house with a driveway, therefore no reliable & convenient way to charge the car. I'll stick with my diseasel leased smoker and fast bike combination for a good while yet. Though given the right circumstances I would consider a move to Plug-in Hybrid or EV driving, but living in a apartment, precludes that being a possibility for me and many others within city environments, who would benefit most from such a move.

I can lend you a D2 if you want to join us in Cornwall next year :)

https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-...-tron-gt/39208

Just for info..

Don't want to kick off the whole ICE v EV debate again please, think we know on here who are evangelistic about EVs and those who are not, and I suspect no amount of debate (factual or otherwise) will change that+++

"the future is actually about 18 months away. That's because this e-tron GT make production in 2020". Yawwwnnnn.....that's another 18 months away. Again.

Funny how time seems to stand still for some of these Tesla killers :D.

It looks like a Model S to me, which will have been on sale for 8 (eight!!) years by the time this lookalike arrives.

Turning automotive supertankers round seems to take a very long time - 2020 is when the Tesla Roadster will (allegedly...) go on sale.

Keep up ICECo's....:rolleyes:

It's based on a Porsche Taycan, another advantage traditional maufacturers have is they can share platforms..:)

Oh and they may keep adding 18 months to their timescales as they know there is little demand yet for EVs and they can continue to make lots of money selling ICE cars :p

More evidence that they're changing their mind on where the demand is going to be coming from - 14Bn EV investment:

https://electrek.co/2018/12/04/audi-...cles/?pushup=1

That'll be instead of the 20Bn they were going to invest in diesel/other EVs a couple of years back then +++

The key quote here from here is this: "we want to electrify people again for Audi and at the same time be an agile and very efficient company".

Good news. Now dismantle your existing ICE supply chain and the fat and inefficient dealer network, and I'll believe it completely and then I'll think of buying Audi once again. Until then, I'm off to look at an actual Model 3 in the flesh on Friday in Manchester +++

Well, it's now about 15 months later from my Oct 18 starter post on this thread, and this just happened:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50921729

So Tesla have started delivering actual cars already in China - just over a year from breaking ground for their first factory.

And where's this capable competition, available at half the price? :rolleyes:.

Happy New Year, ICE companies....

Give the Chinese a few months ...

Now that they have the plans, I'm sure they'll be knocking out Tesla copies for just a few grand each soon. :D

I don't doubt it, though they won't be capable - and anyway Mark, I was quoting the VAG execs who were promising this capable competitor, not another foreign upstart to their market share.

VAG have taken waaay too long to wake up to this, and sadly still can't compete effectively with any of these new entrants.

I got that; I was just joking. :)
Although I do suspect the Chinese will become capable competitors sooner than we might expect, and this move by Tesla to begin manufacturing in China will probably be a factor in accelerating that. Probably unlikely we'll see direct clones/copies (at least not outside of China) but I have no doubt that any skills and knowledge gained at Chinese Tesla factories will inevitably spill over into other Chinese factories, who will then build on (and likely improve) the Tesla tech. That's usually how it goes.

You're right though. VAG and most other manufacturers are barely off the starting grid, while Tesla are beginning to complete their first laps. It's going to be very difficult for most of the big manufacturers to catch up now. Perhaps they are destined to become resellers of re-badged Chinese Tesla clones!

^^ This.

I'm staggered that I've gone from a string of 45 Audis to a single Tesla, and can't comprehend any good reason why I'd ever go back.

Audi don't have a good EV, and they don't have a charging network. And I don't really see any plans to change either of those. Customer service is definitely on the slide too, which was the only thing they had above Tesla to be honest.

I should just take a moment to document all the issues I've had with range anxiety and running out of charge though:

*this page intentionally left blank*

;)


Super funny event over xmas though - Sister in law limped her car to our place on vapours, and as you can't just plug it in to charge up, I had to drive my Telsa to the local Shell garage to get a can of petrol.... What a pain. Cost 7 quid for 5 litres, or about 25 miles of juice. That same 7 quid would keep me going over a week on leccy.... +++