VW will spend $50B on EV's through 2023
Discussion
VW will spend 44 billion euros ($50 billion) through 2023, part of a push for now more than 50 full-electric models by 2025. This is 10 billion euros more compared with last year’s planning round.
"Electric cars? Phah! Just a hype, it'll never catch on".
"Electric cars? Phah! Just a hype, it'll never catch on".
inabox said:
I can't work VW out. I love my e-golf, it's incredibly accomplished but nobody knows they exist, there's a ten month wait for one and the dealers know absolutely nothing about EV, most of them aren't even allowed to sell them.
No incentive for the dealers. Almost all car dealers are franchises. They get their bonus based on hitting sales targets. VW isn't pushing the model.This is VAG we're talking about, an organisation that set out to deliberately cheat the system. They have massive investment in ICE that runs more than a decade in advance. It's only because they're being forcibly dragged (kicking and screaming) into the EV age that they're reluctantly doing this. Only it may be too late.
Germany is going to end up being the 21st century's Detroit. Manufacturing moved to China. The big German car makers will end up like Nokia and Blackberry - out-innovated by Tesla, Nio, Byton, Dyson, Apple and others, most of them Chinese owned.
DragonflyTrumpeter said:
Took you a while, but I was forgetting about time differences. My bad. But you certainly never disappoint, regardless of predictability 
I think Elon should just give you a free Tesla for services rendered to the cause.
How is your ice motor by the way, still going strong?
Regardless of how you feel about his previous posts and views, he's called VW out 100% accurately.I think Elon should just give you a free Tesla for services rendered to the cause.
How is your ice motor by the way, still going strong?
inabox said:
I can't work VW out. I love my e-golf, it's incredibly accomplished but nobody knows they exist, there's a ten month wait for one and the dealers know absolutely nothing about EV, most of them aren't even allowed to sell them.
They've a lot of work to do
Seems like the default response when someone tries to buy an eGolf is to be pointed to a GTD.They've a lot of work to do
What's more, the eGolf isn't anything to shout about in the EV market.
Evanivitch said:
Seems like the default response when someone tries to buy an eGolf is to be pointed to a GTD.
What's more, the eGolf isn't anything to shout about in the EV market.
is this a vw specific attitude or more prevalent?What's more, the eGolf isn't anything to shout about in the EV market.
I'm driving a disintegrating heap of a van around holding out to buy a phev or ev van several of which are supposedly available from next year (geely, ford, merc) rather than a new diesel now.
RobDickinson said:
they do need more than press releases though they have talked this s
t before and not done the walk.
Have to agree. Always wonder about the real motivation when companies make public stuff which just reads like puff marketing.t before and not done the walk.If VW were seriously marshaling this level of resources, why tell anyone when they don't have a serious range of EV products which are available to buy? Potential customers don't care how many $'s a company *might* be investing.
I presume the real audience for this is the regulator as part of their continuing effort to convince them they have changed, while they plead mea culpa.
Some logic does need to be applied. They can’t just switch overnight from ICE to EV. Firstly the EV consumer market is not there to facilitate the shift and secondly neither is the cost effective manufacturing infrastructure. VW make about 10m cars a year. There aren’t 10m EV buyers to match this volume. VW build For the most part, cheap cars for normal people on normal budgets. The EV is not yet viable for that segment.
Ergo, they will go through the cycle of migrating from ICE to hybrid and deliver EV growth as the consumer market demand grows for it. In the meantime, just like BP has a huge marketing department making sure the company fits the eco profile in the consumers mindset as best as possible so will VW. It will take years to switch to building millions of affordable runabout EVs but we will get a lot of PR guff inbetween and for as long as their typical consumer still demands/requires non EVs.
There’s no real rush to actually deliver vast numbers of EVs but there is a real rush to be flooding the market with PR etc ahead of it.
Ergo, they will go through the cycle of migrating from ICE to hybrid and deliver EV growth as the consumer market demand grows for it. In the meantime, just like BP has a huge marketing department making sure the company fits the eco profile in the consumers mindset as best as possible so will VW. It will take years to switch to building millions of affordable runabout EVs but we will get a lot of PR guff inbetween and for as long as their typical consumer still demands/requires non EVs.
There’s no real rush to actually deliver vast numbers of EVs but there is a real rush to be flooding the market with PR etc ahead of it.
It also has a starting price that is more than 50% higher than the standard Golf starting price.
VW aren’t pushing it because they are evil but because they know the numbers don’t add up to make it viable for them as a business at this moment in time.
They are a machine who’s sole reason to exist is to sell as many cars as possible for as much profit as possible. When that can be done via EVs then that is exactly what they will do. Think of them as the Goldman Sachs of the automotive world.
VW aren’t pushing it because they are evil but because they know the numbers don’t add up to make it viable for them as a business at this moment in time.
They are a machine who’s sole reason to exist is to sell as many cars as possible for as much profit as possible. When that can be done via EVs then that is exactly what they will do. Think of them as the Goldman Sachs of the automotive world.
FeelingLucky said:
Regardless of how you feel about his previous posts and views, he's called VW out 100% accurately.
I think everyone knows VAG's form. It's RD's continual need to reference and promote Tesla with regard to everything. 90% of his previous posts are links to Tesla and Musk being akin to the 2nd coming of the Lord himself. Quite astonishing for a guy who drives a Mitsubishi ice motor, a poor ice at that.My views on his previous posts are clear, tedious in the extreme for about 23k of them.
RobDickinson said:
Evanivitch said:
What's more, the eGolf isn't anything to shout about in the EV market.
The egolf isn't a bad car, screwed together well drives well, better than the leaf etc. It's just a compliance car vw don't want to sell at all. Still. 
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