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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

#141

Post by AstralStorm »

kensai wrote: post #140
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…

Exactly what Tesla did when it marketed the 3. Wait list. Have friends that still waiting. Perfectly normal, factories for EVs have to be built from ground up or adapted. This takes time. In the meantime, why not win hearts and minds?

In the meantime, you could get a few Nissan Leaf Plus - due next year most likely.

And unlike VW and Tesla, Nissan has the production capacity...

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

#142

Post by AstralStorm »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #131
elihu wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly they're constrained by battery supply, or maybe they don't think they can ramp up production fast enough to supply all markets at once. We'll know they're really committed when they stop making gas/diesel cars (which they've said they're planning to do eventually).

Of course they are constrained by battery supply as a primary reason. The second reason is EVERY SINGLE EV hurts their dealers, because the maintenance is so much less. No spark plugs, mufflers, less use of brakes because of regen, no tune ups. They can still go wrong but so much is not needed in evs. Dealers make most of their profits from maintenance, and thus - they don't want them.

No, maintenance is generally done by separate auto shops. These do sometimes license the brand to become "authorized" but they definitely have nothing to do with car dealership.

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

#143

Post by cbg0 »

kabes wrote: post #76

They claim an 8 year / 160K km warranty on their battery. But this usually means they claim to have X percent capacity left after this time. E.g. for the BMW i3 it's 70%. But how can a car owner even measure this? How would one go about claiming this warranty if he thinks it degraded too much?

> But how can a car owner even measure this?

You simply check what range you have with a full charge and compare with the advertised range or the range you had when you bought it new for your typical commute.

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

#144

Post by AstralStorm »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #121
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You like the touchscreen now that you don't have to use it? So in your case it wouldn't matter whether there is a touchscreen or not, because you admit to not using it. There's no reason a car can't have physical buttons and voice control

> There's no reason a car can't have physical buttons and voice control Cost and complexity - dials are way harder to do than a touchscreen.

They're actually much easier, but the design has to be careful to make them useful.

The touchscreen requires a (small, embedded) PC. The dials can even be done analog or with the cheapest of microcontrollers.

The touchscreen trend is due to misguided minimalism which puts all the functionality in one piece of hardware.

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

#145

Post by AstralStorm »

GhostVII wrote: post #67
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…

I think it is cost savings, to be honest. Probably a lot cheaper to throw a screen in a car and iterate on the design then spend the time to design a proper physical interface. With physical buttons it is very expensive to add a new button, with touch screens you just copy in some HTML.

Sure, because adding a touch button is free there's UI overload and lack of tactility.

You have to switch multiple screens to do what you want. That's no good, it's only perhaps ok for things you should never do while driving.

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

#146

Post by YZF »

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…

You get used to it. I agree it's not perfect but the car as a whole is amazing. It's just a completely different experience. As the self driving features become better this becomes even less than an issue. At any rate, you don't buy the model 3 because of the screen, you buy it because it's a great car that happens to have it's UI on a screen. Great driving experience, no more gas stations, no more oil changes, don't kill the planet while you're driving...

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

#147

Post by petre »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #139
PorterDuff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Toyota and BMW both are dragging their heels with EVs and are mostly focusing on hybrids and hydrogen. IMHO both are a dead end and an expensive mistake. 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 ar…

BMW has an electric model just like Nissan, Renault. And it's a good car too, albeit kind of weird looking and with limited range. It's quite perfect for city driving, has an optional scooter engine if your battery is dead. I'm not a BMW fan but I like the i3, because it's everything other BMW models aren't. Most traditional car manufacturers are testing the EV waters with compact minis. Tesla is in the US market so of course they had to have a SUV. They don't have a pickup truck though.

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

#148

Post by hnarn »

bearjaws wrote: post #134
Xixi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful when comparing EU prices to US prices: EU prices always include sales tax (varies by country, but 20% in France and 19% in Germany), while US prices never include them. Assuming 10% tariffs and 20% sales taxes, that bumps the $35,000 Tesla to $46,200, or about 42,000 EUR. Indeed the cheapest Model 3 that I could find in France costs 42,600 EUR. If the Volkswagen ID.3 comes in somewhere between 26,000 EUR a…

America is going to charge 20% to import the ID.3, unless they are making it here in the states, which I highly doubt.

> VW has no plans to release the car in the US right now, and it's also unclear whether the company will sell the car in China.

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

#149

Post by clouddrover »

novok wrote: post #125
clouddrover wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla will be fine, for several reasons Tesla will be fine as a niche manufacturer. Jaguar's been around for a long time and they've always been a low volume manufacturer. Tesla can be the same. > 1. They're way ahead of everyone else in terms of energy efficiency. The Hyundai Kona, Kia Niro EV, and the Kia Soul EV all achieve good range at a lower price point than Tesla offers. > 2. Super chargers - other manufact…

Really? The gap isn’t that much, about $2200 looking at a before subsidy price. And the interior of the korean EVS are pretty cheap compared to the model 3, so if tesla wanted to they could make a tesla that uses cheap materials and doesn’t ship with special sensors. Call it the model 1. What holds me back is more a unknown / bad record of reliability with tesla and a lack of charging infrastructure in apartments for…

> so if tesla wanted to they could make a tesla that uses cheap materials and doesn’t ship with special sensors. Call it the model 1.

Could they? So why don't they? The 35k Model 3 didn't go too well. Why will this Model 1 do better for Tesla?

It's difficult to target multiple segments simultaneously. You need the scale of a company like Volkswagen to do it successfully. Tesla is headed for a decision point on the kind of car company they want to be. They'll probably choose to stay low volume:

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/29960/teslas-hero-cycle-leads-...

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

#150

Post by jillesvangurp »

petre wrote: post #147
jillesvangurp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota and BMW both are dragging their heels with EVs and are mostly focusing on hybrids and hydrogen. IMHO both are a dead end and an expensive mistake. 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 ar…

BMW has an electric model just like Nissan, Renault. And it's a good car too, albeit kind of weird looking and with limited range. It's quite perfect for city driving, has an optional scooter engine if your battery is dead. I'm not a BMW fan but I like the i3, because it's everything other BMW models aren't. Most traditional car manufacturers are testing the EV waters with compact minis. Tesla is in the US market so…

Yes, the i3, which they are discontinuing. Most of their lineup is hybrids and ICE vehicles. They do have an electric mini which they recently announced as well as a few more models that they announced. Lets just say they are moving but slowly and rather late.
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