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

The whole point of Tesla's infotainment is to not be touching or changing anything while driving, its all configured based on who unlocked the car.

This is an unfortunate decision. Charging EVs is a collective-action problem. Selling cars that have at least double the charging time at capable public chargers contributes to that collective-action problem. VW could have set a relatively quick lower boundary on charging speed, perhaps by raising the price of the higher-version models to subsidize the price of a 100kW base model.

The problem is worse for this class of car, which is billed as long-range and thus is more likely to have the car's occupants (and other queued cars) waiting for a mid-journey charge to complete, versus a short-range car where owners are more likely to charge overnight or during a work shift.

Battery prices and range are on track to improve for the foreseeable future and most other manufacturers are basically preparing to massively increase production of the dozens of EVs they announced in the next few years. There are very few manufacturers left that are not fully committed to EVs at this point. Toyota, Mazda, BMW, Fiat, and a few others basically.

BMW already is signalling they expect issues with market share, growth, profit etc. and just appointed a new CEO to fix this. In other words, they are late to this game, they know it, and are now acting to fix this. I know less about Toyota but they seem to be very stubbornly ignoring battery EVs so far. IMHO that signals long term trouble for them as well. Unless they find a way to catch up in a hurry. Either way, they are late and the rest of the industry is not waiting for them. IMHO Nissan and Honda, are in much better shape.

For most manufacturers the key game the next ten years is going to be securing availability of low cost batteries with decent range while balancing that cost with the absolute massive cost of dismantling their legacy manufacturing and supply industry. I expect layoffs directly related to that in Germany may affect tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of jobs across the thousands of companies that make up the car industry and their suppliers over the next decade. BMW just announced layoffs for 6000 in Germany. My guess is that won't be the last time.

Tesla is where they are in the market right now because they decided years ago to produce battery packs in house and recently to also start producing their own battery cells. That gives them a cost and technical advantage. They have no legacy business and every penny that comes in is invested in more production capacity, lowering cost, and improving technology.

VW is investing tens of billions to catch up in the next few years. IMHO this is exactly the right thing to do for them and I think Dieselgate helped speed up the decision making. The ID.3 is an important milestone for them and when they start shipping this in volume in a few years, it will no doubt affect the rest of the industry. They are already talking about Id.4 and my guess is they are not stopping there. I think there's a good chance they might wipe out or flat out absorb a few of their competitors in the process. BMW for example. Meanwhile Tesla has at least five years and probably closer to ten years where they are basically enjoying volume and cost advantages essentially unchallenged. I'd be surprised if they don't establish themselves as one of the top car manufacturers during that time.