VW to Build €20k EVs on Its Own, Forgoing Partnerships

Citroën ë-C3 and Renault R5 are steps in the right direction. I don’t trust VW anymore to do anything revolutionary like affordable electrical vehicle for the masses. VW e-Up was close, but too far from €20k.

Why I don’t trust VW? I look at Cariad, the software company and think, that group has too many internal conflicts. Every brand has its own interests and needs at the end. I am not sure, that cheap e vehicle is a common need for them. VW is happy having Golf as most popular new car again right now.

PHEV's have all the downsides of maintaining a gas vehicle, as well as much of the associated cost (and upcharge) of a BEV at this point. It's not as much maintainence as a dedicated gas vehicle, but it's still there.

Realistically, I think it makes a lot more sense to have a dedicated BEV with whatever range you feel appropriate, and a dedicated gas vehicle (if needed) for road trips and longer jaunts. For the vast majority of people, renting a vehicle makes a lot more sense for those occasions.

Generally, I think the populous seems to highly overvalue the ability to take a road trip on a moments notice and undervalue the ease of just being able to rent a vehicle.

The downside with plugin hybrids is that they require having a charger at home. Otherwise they're annoying enough that people give up on charging them.

This is because smaller batteries take a long time to charge (usually AC only), and small capacity means they need to be charged frequently (often daily).

BEVs can have batteries 10x larger, which also allows them to charge at a 10x faster rate. The larger battery can last a whole week on a single charge. Quick infrequent charging makes them tolerable even without having a charger at home.

BEVs also don't cycle whole batteries that much, because driving 30 miles daily will use 10% of the battery, not 100%.

The i3 I've been driving around has been a complete revelation. It's an older model with a worn-out small battery. It usually claims to have 52mi range when it's topped up in the morning. Realistically, I can only use about 40-45 of that before I worry about it shutting off the contactors to protect the cells.

But it has a range extender. That transforms it from essentially a dedicated grocery-getter to a daily driver that can commute all over Socal. Barely over 2 gallons of gas will give you an extra 70mi (at about 65mph)

Granted, it's more a technology demonstrator than a blueprint for an affordable mass-market EV, but it's a huge step in the right direction if you ask me. Much more similar to what the average person in a city needs in a car than, say, the 600hp model 3 I was driving around for awhile.

I don't own a car, so I've rented vehicles from time to time - and my experience is that (in my country at least) the vehicle rental experience is absolute trash.

Would you believe that on three separate occasions I turned up to collect my (reserved and paid for) vehicle on a Friday, ready to go on a road trip, and they simply didn't have a vehicle for me?