They'll also have a vastly improved super charger network, a mature software ecosystem, a mature direct sales/servicing model, and whatever else they dream up like Powerwall and other systems that can potentially add value to the whole. VW will just be scratching the surface by 2020 while Tesla will likely continue sprinting ahead.
More importantly, when EVs get popular we'll obviously see new power supply stations everywhere, and they may not comply with today's notion of a gas station. We'll see for example EV-specific stations such as rest areas or highway diners or shopping centers or autosilos or private parking spots that provide that service while drivers go on with their lives. These actually already exist, but as the number of EV cars is so small in comparison to ICE cars that they are barely noticeable.
I guess in the future Movie theatres, airports, malls, etc will be equipped with charging stations as an incentive to customers.
Although not being able to charge from home looks like an opportunity for someone.
VW hast way more: experience, capacity, people, money.
They can probably do that.
It will take time to shift an entire entrenched organizational culture to focus on EVs...and not just making them, but to make ones that are truly without compromise ("as good as Tesla").
These things aren't easy at all, though it might be tempting to think that it's just a matter of resources. Microsoft had all the resources in the world and still couldn't pull off Bing or Windows Phone.
To challenge your thinking a bit, consider this: part of the reason you can buy a Tesla in California or Texas today and not worry about range at all is the supercharger network that can take your Model 3 from 0 to 80% in 20mins. That's a multi decade infrastructure investment that VW hasn't even begun. And no, regular 3rd party chargers you see plopped in random malls and centers aren't even close. Not by a long shot.
It sure seems to me like the ICE car indistry biggies are in a kodak like moment.
From the love bug to just a bug.
[0] https://a16z.com/2018/09/17/hallway-conversation-tesla-disru...
Unfortunately, the current e-Golf is just a regular Golf poorly converted to electric, way too expensive and with not enough range.
"We will take a currently winning product X and deliver 2X by some future date Y."
Imagine if competitors actually said:
"We will first catch up to X by some date before Y. Then we will hit 2X by Y".
Not that they actually plan to catch up. In May 2018 their official plan was to make 1 million electric cars by 2025 (https://electrek.co/2018/05/29/vw-electric-vehicle-demand-eu...).
Tesla is already making ~300k per year, is on track to make ~500k within 9 months in Fremont, has already started building China plant that will add 250k within 2 years and 500k within 4-5 years, has already telegraphed building European plant for another 500k cars and will most likely start building Model Y in Nevada starting sometime 2020.
Bottom line is that Tesla will likely reach 1 million cars a year by 2022, 3 years before VW.
Maybe VW will speed up their plans but batteries don't grow on trees. Recently we learned that LG Chem wants Audi (part of VW group) to pay 10% more for batteries because demand outstrips the supply (https://electrek.co/2018/10/22/audi-e-tron-delay-software-lg...).
Tesla has been designing battery packs since Roadster days and building Gigafactory 1 since January 2015 so almost 4 years to build battery capacity for ~400k cars. As far as I know VW has no battery R&D and relies for the most important and most expensive component of ev car on 3rd party suppliers who also supply the same thing to their competitors and apparently are so swamped by demand that they can raise prices while Tesla is aggressively bringing the price of batteries down.
And it remains to be seen if they are able to create software that is as refined as Tesla's.
Took me a while to figure out that scrolling on this page is broken unless you enable javascript.
Looks like the reason is that it needs Googles amp code to function.
It's hillarious that Google gets away bloating the web with crap and selling us that as a way to make it more lightweight.
Flagging it for this reason. I think we should not support AMP here on HN.
If you were able to read it without js, the reason is probably that HN meanwhile changed the link to the non-amp version.
Also, what will happen to the price of ICE cars if EV's start catching up?
If VWs electric vehicles really are as good as Tesla's by 2020, it will be more a condemnation of Tesla than praise for VW.
That's going to be nearly impossible to avoid in the future. I do some software work for one automaker and every 2019+ model has a firewall on the data bus. It's not because they want to lock you out of repairing your car, it's because the pen testing and Defcon hacking has been accelerating over the past few years and they don't want headlines that say their cars can be hacked. That's bad for sales. They'll lose sales from guys like you too of course -- your concern is certainly valid, but more people are concerned about the security of their car than being able to repair it themselves.
I read stories that Tesla disabled cars that have been repaired too much, and that you have to have them certified and unlocked again. They always claim security and user experience grounds, but of course the main motive is maximizing profit. Apple does this, John Deere does this, basically every company who can afford to does this.
I wish they would be honest enough to say first, yup, we do this so we can charge more money for repairs and spare parts. Second, we have no other choice because our competitors do this too and we have to maximize profit. And then I hope third we get strong right to repair laws as a result. I heard in the US the situation for cars is actually not too bad as the manufacturer cannot void your warranty for installing third party parts, but there is always room for improvement.
I don't need the ability to "tinker" with my car. But in the end, I buy it, and I want it to be 100% "loyal" to me and not to the manufacturer - like a stupid hammer, or a bicycle. That should be a legal principle IMO.
Personally, I don't like the term range anxiety, it sounds like a fighting term from the gas car industry and also doesn't take people's worries seriously. My problem is completely different: If there was no Model S, I would be totally happy with an e-car with 140 miles range. But if I can get another car for a similar price with twice the range, I'm going to buy that instead.
It shows to me that VW (like other established brands) is not doing the technically possible, but half-hartedly quickly making an electric car, just so they also have one. The e-Golf AFAIK uses the same platform as most VW (and Skoda etc.) cars, where they crammed the batteries in there where there was space. Teslas are designed from ground up for electric, and the whole car underbody is basically a battery.
VW's e-golf is advertised as having a 140 mile range. It's noticeably lower than Tesla's advertised range of 200 mile but as it's a city car designed for the european market I'm not sure it's relevant. I mean, in some european countries that's more than enough to drive through the entire nation.
I don't get it, why everybody start to build car like a smartphone now days?
I'm very interested to see if this actually happens in the near future.
I hope we don't get scenarios where you need to charge a car, there are 10 free sports but all are from different manufacturers and are not compatible or charge you extra like we had with ATMs where you had to find teh right ATM or pay extra.
That is ideal, but inevitably I think there has to be a bit of a give and take there because the manufacturer is likely the most trustworthy party to handle the security of their vehicles (they have the most to lose).
For example, it's very difficult to make new keys for modern cars. Most manufacturers require that you go through them, and in fact a very secure department within the company, to get a "keycode" to make new keys. I think most people would agree that is a reasonable security benefit because it makes it almost impossible for a thief to make a new key even though it adds some extra hoops for the legit owner when they want a new key.
But Chrysler, for example, allows you to buy a new keyfob from anywhere you want, even repurpose an old one and program it yourself if you have two existing keyfobs for your car (that way a valet or service center with only one keyfob can't do it, only the owner with both keyfobs can do it).
Tesla was the first to encrypt their vehicle firmware and I believe they had to do this in order to do over the air updates, and I think that was also a necessity given the way they chose to do service operations (which also made sense since their goal was to have very few moving parts and therefore reduce the need for service center visits altogether).
I think eventually the head unit will be powerful and secure enough that they will be able to initiate many of these secure "repairs" from there. But, that will require that unit to be very locked down, likely to the same level that some of Apple's devices are (you can't self-swap the secure enclave in iPhones or macbooks since that is what manages security for those devices). The car's head unit would become the "secure enclave" for the car. Right now, the car is more of a distributed system, with no particular ECU being responsible for others... which is why you need an OEM tool to reprogram them.
I hope cars become more modular at the same time. Electric cars should last a lot longer and making it easier to swap key components, like Tesla is doing with their main AI computer, with faster better units will be great... especially if the head unit becomes the hub for the rest of the car, it would be nice to upgrade those when new advancements warrant it.
Saying things like "it shows to me that VW is not doing the technically possible" without ANY informed opinion is embarrassing.
edit: also, do you own any kind of electric car or are you just pontificating? Range anxiety is a real thing - literally the stress of "do I have enough electricity to get home"
Yes, VW knows how to build cars, and manage all the aspects of the process, both technical and political, with plants spread through multiple countries continents.
And VW knows how to do that at scale.
> It will take time to shift an entire entrenched organizational culture to focus on EVs...
That assertion makes no sense, specially because VW does not need to switch the focus of anything. It's another power plant with a particular set of requirements, and VW is already handling those for decades and at much larger scale.
And production-wise, VW is orders of magnitude more capable and experienced in handling entirely different production processes.
Let's put things into perspective: Tesla is currently redlining its production process, including resorting to tents to perform ad-hoc extensions to the company's plant, just to reach 1% of VW's current production capacity, and currently VW is actually scrambling to keep entire factories with a residual production line for non-technical or economical reasons.
In fact, the Audi e-tron is coming out soon and it is based on one of the most popular VW group compact crossovers, which is a much hotter market segment than sedans.
I know a lot of Tesla owners and they don't rely on superchargers when they travel. They just drive one of their other cars, or fly. The superchargers are not as big of an advantage as they seem to be, especially in urban areas where they are overcrowded. Futhermore, they are not free for owners of the Model 3, and usage is free only under certain limits for owners of other Tesla models: https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharging
I would also add that even VW's unions backed VW's transition to EV, and actually insisted that VW "invested heavily" in EVs.
And that actually happened way back in 2016
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2016/11/18/volksw...
So, claiming that VW will be unable to perform that transition when at this stage the company has been actively shifting its focus for years... It shows a complete lack of understanding of how VW operates and what VW's plans have been for years.
What do you mean by multi-decade infrastructure investment? It hasn't taken Tesla multiple decades to spin theirs up. If you mean it's a multi-decade commitment, well sure, but it's very clear at this point that VW (and others) are going to make that commitment.
Also, it seems rather likely that actually there will be a much better commodity charger network, running on an open standard, set up. Seems unthinkable that it wouldn't be the case, actually, probably even legally enforced by regulation if necessary - though it will probably just make economic sense for all manufacturers to agree to this and evolve naturally.
If VW can launch a quality product with way more supply than Tesla, they'll sell more. Tesla is doing most of the marketing for EVs, VW and other auto makers just need to meet demand. There's far less customer loyalty on things like cars than computers or online services, so it'll come down to value.
(Being German VAG not succeeding is quite a frightening perspective. But being human I appreciate Musk jumpstarting the EV business, whoever will be the big players in the end.)
https://www.tesla.com/blog/battery-cell-production-begins-gi...