Comment by geff82 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geff82 | Hacker News Reader

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This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Toyota Prius. Yet, German manufacturers have no competing product to offer: cars with electric components are those at the high end of the price list, totally overpriced. And when you ask the salespeople, they will tell you in all honesty to better NOT take that hybrid because of the questionably quality. Cars like the Renault ZOE, Kia Niro, Hyundai Ioniq and a lot of other types show that you can make a hybrid/electric car at reasonable prices and good reliability. The German manufacturers seem to have nothing learned from it yet. This summer, the new fully-electric Smart comes out. Range: 120km. Who needs that shit? They say "most people don't drive more than that to work every day". What a bad excuse! They had that 5 years ago. Yet people love their Teslas because they don't have to think about charging every few kilometers. Buy a regular Golf: 17.000€. Buy a plugin-hybrid Golf (one of the very few German offerings): 35.000€. Clearly a sign they try to ride a dead horse. Invest now - live off the scaling effects tomorrow! Something that seems unthinkable in a traditional shareholder-value driven industry like the German car industry, that prides themselves to be at the forefront of technology, yet don't want to stop depending on 130 year old technology. Do you know what Mercedes began to offer in the year the Renault ZOE came out? They were proud on their brand new Mercedes G AMG65 with 12 cylinders. A 32 year old car that (almost) no one needs nowadays.

Look at the (German) Audi website. They have their G-Tron initiative. Looks quite impressive, next to their E-Tron stuff. G-Tron is CNG gas... they are just using the old engines further, branding them as "green" somehow.

Nothing can express, their aversion against innovation as Fiat CEO statement: "Please don't buy Fiat 500e electric car".

They only made Fiat 500 electric to fulfill regulation requirements, so they can sells more of 130 years tech, which is cheaper then investing into new clean tech . Only Tesla's success, made them finally innovate. I personally consider this attitude arrogant and would never buy product from such a company.

http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs-idUSL1N0O71M...

If you look at the history of Fiat/Chrysler in the last years is a history of resurgence from troubled waters, probably not the right company to be the innovator in a money-loosing field at this point in time.

So I don't think their attitude is conservatorism or lack of vision, judging from the business results of the last years I bet they'll jump on the EV bandwagon as soon as it starts making money.

>Yet, German manufacturers have no competing product to offer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_e-tron

I had an hybrid A3 rental just 6 weeks ago. If I could, I'd never drive something else. It's smooth in the city like you would expect from an electric car, and you can travel long distance at over 100mph and still stay arround 33mpg.

See the price point again... compared to the other engines. This is not priced to sell, this is priced to showcase.

Look at the interior of the Model 3. It's just as much a joke for that price point.

Relevant when shopping for interior and interior alone, accepting no compromises. But then again, such shopper would not betray the consistent luxury of Maybach or Rolls-Royce.

> [old technology vs. electric cars]

Just a quick remark that electic cars aren't exactly new either. I have a bunch of engineering magazines from inherited my grandfather, dated to the late 1930's, where a new electic car is written about in a way that show readers are expected to already know about this development.

Edit: Wikipedia says even those magazines were 40 years late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl...

>Range: 120km. Who needs that shit?

I will, if it has sane price, but most likely it wouldn't. For as long as there are countries with huge lump sum EV subsidies, there is no need for EV makers to go below ~35k.

Sure. I would happily pay my 7-10k for it, but not 20-25.

For me a range of 100 km would be good enough. I'm just not willing to pay 20.000€+ for that. And so I'm currently looking into a Renault Twizy, which has a range of up to 100 km, for around 8700€. Only problem I have with it is that it's a one person car, and the battery rent is 50€ per month, which is more than I currently pay for gasoline.

Sharing your Opinion. If price is low, then a lower range is ok, too. It is just that for the price of the Smart you could get a real car (Renault ZOE, which in in my opinion has the same revolutionary traits as the Teslas) with large electric range for the same price. They are missing almost every opportunity.

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