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Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

Well VW is due to release cars based on their new electric platform this year

Finally after years and years of saying it was around the corner. Lets see the price and specs. I think they still havent released those details?

BMW and Mercedes have made similar investments in all electric platforms.

What you mean is, BMW and Mercedes have made similar noises about getting really good at EVs in a few years time but so far have produced nothing of much relevance. The BMW i3 was pretty good for its time but then they disbanded the team, goodness knows what boardroom nonsense was going on there.

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It takes years to design a car. They need to run for thousands of miles across rough roads. There are thousands of moving parts. There are thousands more parts that don't move but are still complex.

An EV drivetrain is extremely simple and reliable. They are dragging their feet on purpose to extend their returns on ICE investment, not because it's "too hard".

A Drive train is just a small part of a car. While it is simpler than an ICE, it is not simple to make millions of them reliable for 10 years.

Unless EV door handles and airbags are that much more complicated, I must be missing something. The problems with EVs are support infrastructure and profitability, NOT reliability and complexity.

Tesla has the third lowest reliability rating of any car manufacturer. If you want reliability you want to buy Toyota:

https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20...

Reliability isn't as simple as "it's an EV".

They think in terms of platforms, their next gen platform has all kinds of other requirements (think >100 processors, sensors etc.). The good news is that their next gen platform will be electric and that they hiring >5000 new software engineers to build out the user experience.

"An EV drivetrain is extremely simple and reliable"

I don't know why it is so popular to repeat this over and over because it seems palpably ridiculous to me.

Everybody has plenty of experience with electrically powered appliances, and many if not most of them only last a few years. I'm not suggesting this is inherent, just that there is no reason to consider them simpler or necessarily more reliable.

If there were washing machines or smartphones that you could expect to last decades, then I would find the idea of EVs being super reliable more plausible.

I know that. But Tesla, Hyundai, Kia and Nissan and others have managed it. Why give VW a pass for talking the talk for six years and still having not much to show for it.

Volkswagen is showing it now. They'll release multiple models across multiple brands every year from now on. Here are some upcoming EVs from Volkswagen. Some available now, some available soon, some available in future:

Audi e-Tron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uHlohyKLlQ

Audi e-Tron GT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvNw15W_EK8

Audi Q4 e-Tron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwevzHsCbU

Porsche Taycan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVkOQojN4Y

Porsche Macan: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18240862/porsche-macan-el...

VW ID.3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Tqw9LX3QE

SEAT el-Born: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ShA3l0BHGs

Skoda Vision iV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1g9xl6W_E

VW ID Crozz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8zbuvzEA5A

VW ID Buzz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQut6ks3nSY

VW ID Roomzz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzP6NOGNIWo

Don't get me wrong, if they pull this off I'll be cheering them on.

The ones actually launched (e-tron only I think?) have been disappointing. The e-tron has a huge 90kwh battery and only 205 miles of range. People can make excuses for it but the reality is that is an engineering failure.

All the other MEB models that are supposed to be coming soon - all we've got is jazzy names and concept car mock ups. Yet to see production car, price or specs on any of those.

Perhaps they have some technical advance up their sleeves. But imho the chances are this big new MEB platform is 75% pr puff. There's a good chance that the things their going to actually launch will be on par with the 2016 Nissan Leaf. That's what just happened with BMWs electric Mini.

So let's talk when they announce actual dates, prices and specs. For now I'm skeptical.

> all we've got is jazzy names and concept car mock ups.

You should actually watch the videos. Does that Taycan look like a mock up to you?

The VW ID.3 is not a jazzy name. They had 20,000 pre-bookings a month ago:

https://www.electrive.com/2019/06/05/vw-marks-20000-pre-orde...

> For now I'm skeptical.

It doesn't matter if you're skeptical or not. Volkswagen is not spending 80 billion euros on EVs for the fun of it:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insig...

Ok so we know what they Taycan is going to look like. We still don't know the range. They need to beat the Model S on performance and range, though not necessarily price. Otherwise they're going to look like idiots. This is Porsche, after all. Theyre making a big fuss about how fast it can charge. Is that because they know it won't compete on range (like the e-tron)? Let's see in 12 months time.

Ok the ID3 is a reasonable name, But we still don't know what this supposed flagship is going to look like. It's definitely not going to look like the pics they've released so far. But Crozz, Buzz and Roomz seem like pr names rather than actual production car names.

If they really are investing all that money I would expect a lot of delays because they'll need to actually deliver something good rather than a cop out for that amount of cash.

So let's meet back here in 12 months and see how the ID3 pans out.

> They need to beat the Model S on performance

The Model S overheats when doing a lap at a racetrack. It's not a performance car:

https://insideevs.com/news/323053/tesla-model-s-fails-to-lap...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfZLGIs0H14

> Ok the ID3 is a reasonable name, But we still don't know what this supposed flagship is going to look like

Of course we do. Have a look:

https://insideevs.com/news/359253/production-parts-vw-id3-st...

https://insideevs.com/news/359217/vw-id3-light-camo-rechargi...

https://insideevs.com/news/359140/video-vw-tease-id3-dashboa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RENix0of9Dw

It's true, the model s is no good on the track. model 3 is better, so let's hope they can beat the 3.

Re: the id3: there's no way it's going to look like the concept car images they have released. Unless I've missed something they are going to reveal the production version in September.

> model 3 is better, so let's hope they can beat the 3

There's no need to hope. The Porsche Taycan has already done sub 8 minutes at the Nurburgring according to Mark Webber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHEdaRhF1k

What's the Model 3's best Nurburgring time?

> Re: the id3: there's no way it's going to look like the concept car images they have released.

Okay, you're clearly not looking at the links. Here's yet another test drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8cHHNPRg-c

I hadn't heard about that Nurburgring lap. That's encouraging. I look forward to hearing the specs when they eventually release them.

I am looking at the links. One of them is about a camouflaged ID3 being spotted a few days ago. Why is it camouflaged? Because the production version has not been revealed yet. Everything shown so far has been prototypes. Admittedly the prototypes have been getting a bit more realistic in styling. I like the look of it. I'm just saying, no specs yet and production version is yet to be unveiled. I hope they can come up with something better than BMW just did. And better than the e-tron they launched earlier this year.

> no specs yet

Look at the links.

Luckily, we had the emissions fraud scandal. Gave a big push to the EV people in all those companies. The combusters still have a lot to say, since they are the ones earning the profits.

It's not meant as an excuse for the old guard, but making billions per year by selling ICEs doesn't make it easier to launch good EVs. Without Tesla, it would never happen.

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