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Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

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Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#51

Post by 14 »

justin66 wrote: post #32
vincent-toups wrote: post #5

For the masses? My family is doing fairly well for people in my generation and I've never ever briefly considered buying a car for more than 10k.

> For the masses? My family is doing fairly well for people in my generation and I've never ever briefly considered buying a car for more than 10k. Identify your reasons for that and ask yourself if they're representative of how "the masses" tend to think about their purchases. (the average used car price in the US is over $20k)

This was my thoughts exactly. I am fairly well off comparatively I make way over minimum wage and there is no way I would consider a car that expensive. Affordable to the masses is more like $20,000 Canadian. That would be the price I could call affordable to the masses. Even a 20,000$ purchase would be hard for most people in my town. As someone who has not looked at EV car prices if this is what they call affordable I guess am still a long way off from owning an EV.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#52

Post by 14 »

nrjames wrote: post #7

All looks good, but the charging rate seems really slow.

I didn't like that fact either. If you have a big battery and only need to charge once in a while it would not be so painful but with the smaller battery combined with the slower charging I wonder if it would get tedious waiting for it to charge all the time.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#53

Post by GuB-42 »

vincent-toups wrote: post #5

For the masses? My family is doing fairly well for people in my generation and I've never ever briefly considered buying a car for more than 10k.

10k for a new car is possible but you are quite limited. I am not even sure that Volkswagen has a single car under that price point, except maybe for end-of-life entry-level models.

Dacia prices start at 8k, and their cars are decent, but they are comparatively old tech. It means they won't get the latest advances regarding fuel economy and the low price is partly offset by higher fuel costs.

All in all, expect to pay around 15k for a no-thrills new car.

Obviously, used cars are cheaper but that's apple to oranges comparison. We don't know how much the ID.3 will cost used, so it's pointless.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#54

Post by bluGill »

anentropic wrote: post #42
davidwren wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conventional wisdom seems to be that at best electric cars will depreciate at the same rate as ICEs or at worst their values will fall off a cliff, the reality is very different, at least in the short run * obviously this will change as production of newer cars ramps up. * https://fullycharged.show/blog/surprisingly-positive-news-on...

The thing I'm curious about is how they will age I would guess the mechanical components, motors etc will potentially be more reliable than ICE But I worry about the batteries, if my laptop is anything to go by it seems like they will eventually die and will be expensive to replace

Today's ICEs are very reliable and generally outlast the car body - assuming your follow the maintenance schedule. All the wear on the body will be the same: pot holes, salt, accidents... Motors won't have nearly as much maintenance (you still need to lube bearings), but the car will die based not on the method of motor power in most cases even if you don't do the maintenance.

Batteries are a worry. Price has come down, but used electric cars are very cheap compared to the ICE cars because of this very reason. Until the market figures out how to replace the batteries at scale, and then buyers figure out how to account for the battery this will not change.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#55

Post by Xixi »

Darkstryder wrote: post #33
Xixi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic maybe, but the 10% is not the Trump tariff, but the EU tariff. As far as I know it predates Trump's election and various trade wars.

Not pedantic, thank you for this info. I was under the impression this tariff existed because of the trade wars. The bad news is that it is less likely to be removed once Trump is out of office :-(

US tariffs are 2.5% on cars and 25% on light trucks, while in the EU it is 10% on both. Most vehicles (66% [1]) sold in the US fall under the light-truck category. What Trump has threatened to do is to impose a 25% tariff not only on cars, but maybe more importantly also on auto parts. So far it has not happened.

[1] https://www.aei.org/publication/the-anti-consumer-25-chicken...

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#56

Post by jayrot »

PorterDuff wrote: post #47
jwr wrote: post #3

European here, trying to actually buy the thing. You can't. The first reservations will be fulfilled in the middle of 2020, but those will only be the mid-sized battery versions. If you want the version with a larger battery, there is no firm ship date, but it is expected in 2021. What I find somewhat amusing is that for the past months we've been bombarded by a huge marketing campaign advertising a car that doesn't…

"huge marketing campaign advertising a car that doesn't exist" Perhaps they are trying to gauge the likely success of the car before some final production decisions are made. You do have to wonder how Tesla is going to survive the first surge of practical mass-market electric cars. They definitely are riding some sort of tiger while trying to build out marketshare, technology, infrastructure. My money is on Toyota bu…

Tesla is first to market on a lot of fronts and has the huge first-mover advantage, but you're right, when the competition gets real the easy wins will be over.

It has been said -- many times -- that the actual major advantage of Tesla cars is that they get better over time by virtue of their software update process. While many many of the big players (VW, Toyota, Honda, etc.) are going to match specs when it comes to battery range and whatnot, I haven't seen any indications that any of them intend to follow suit with the software.

My 2 year old Toyota already feels like it is locked in the stone age when it comes to the software and features.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#57

Post by kwhitefoot »

everdrive wrote: post #8

I'm really excited for more viable electric vehicles. But, the claim that this is the first car for the masses when it's simply 2-3k (~33k to ~35k in USD) cheaper than a Tesla model 3 is discouraging. That said, I do understand that the total cost of ownership does catch up if you keep the car long enough. I would just love to see something in the 20s, or even lower. (Further, I'm very sympathetic to the argument tha…

Why does everyone always compare with Tesla when Hyundai, Kia, Renault, and Nissan already have cars that are either cheaper than the VW or very similar in price?

The Zoe is surely an electric car for the masses and is the best selling electric car in Europe measured over the period 2010 to 2017. And you can get one for about EU 25 000, at least in the UK. See https://www.exchangeandmart.co.uk/new-cars/renault/zoe/renau... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_E...

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#58

Post by rasz »

jwr wrote: post #3

European here, trying to actually buy the thing. You can't. The first reservations will be fulfilled in the middle of 2020, but those will only be the mid-sized battery versions. If you want the version with a larger battery, there is no firm ship date, but it is expected in 2021. What I find somewhat amusing is that for the past months we've been bombarded by a huge marketing campaign advertising a car that doesn't…

>huge marketing campaign advertising a car that doesn't exist

Audi did the same thing. I think they do it for the green image, not sales.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#59

Post by rasz »

mbrumlow wrote: post #12
zaroth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a nice anecdote. The average new car selling price is over $30k (in the US).

I think the point is a used 10k car will almost always be more cost effective.

Bangeronomics make most sense only if you are willing to work on your own car.

Re: Volkswagen unveils the ID.3, its first affordable long-range electric car

#60

Post by drcongo »

herodotus wrote: post #46

> The central focus is a new 10-inch touchscreen that sits in the middle of the ID.3’s dashboard. But VW has also opted to rely on touch-sensitive buttons throughout the cabin. In fact, the only things that are controlled through physical buttons, VW says, are the windows and the hazard lights. I don't understand why big touch screens in cars are seen as a step forward. To me, they raise safety issues, and they lack…

A thousand times this. I recently bought a Toyota Vellfire which has a touch screen ICE and I find that annoying enough on its own, I'd _hate_ to have to fiddle around on a screen to operate other car functionality.
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