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Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

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Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#121

Post by 01100011 »

axaxs wrote: post #5

I'm kicking around the idea of an electric car, but the ranges of these things just utterly disappoint me. With some companies offering, or planning to offer 500ish mile ranges, it would feel immediately outdated to me to throw 40k on something with a ~200 mile range. Is battery tech that different between companies, is it cost prohibitive?

I'll take a range of 80 miles. Enough for a couple round-trips to work with some reserve capacity. I'd pay $20k for a tiny car that provides me with that and I'd keep my gas vehicle for road trips. In order to replace my gas vehicle, I'm going to need 500 miles. That's enough to cover my trip to see family along with a little overhead to handle degredation over time and running the AC in summer. I don't mind stopping to quick charge for 10 minutes once during the trip, but beyond that I'll stick with gas.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#122

Post by kajecounterhack »

Someone1234 wrote: post #62

I feel like the prices on electric vehicles are starting to become their biggest hurdle (instead of range, availability, or charging which are solved enough). If you're from California or New York, I'm sure $40K starting for this or a Model Y seems complexly within your means, but there's a large chunk of the US (by population AND land) where People love to spam $40K US "average" while entirely ignoring that the aver…

New prices are quite prohibitive but the state of things actually isn't the worst for used EVs if you can stomach low range. My family does a two-car approach:

1. Hybrid SUV for actually getting places and moving things

2. ~$4k a used 2013 Smart car. ~45 mile range is good enough for short commute, grocery runs, etc. Charge at home or at work (we have the uncommon situation of no charging at home since we live in a condo complex, and free charging at work).

$4k is like the price of a nice electric bike. We didn't do any maintenance to the car for 3 years (we probably should replace the brake pads). It's working just fine and is an incredible workhorse for the price.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#123

Post by Klwohu »

ajross wrote: post #117
Klwohu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The range is the issue, the "suburban and rural retards" probably have more expensive vehicles than NY and San Fran dwellers. But nobody wants a car that can't run on gas unless you live on an Interstate corridor, the 101, etc.

(Not sure why you introduced that slur with scare quotes given that no one used it upthread, nor even suggested anything similar... This sounds a bit much like you're trying to pick a fight.) Almost no one, even in the US, lives legitimately far from an interstate corridor or other major infrastructure path. These EVs can absolutely be made to work in the red state exurbs. You'll find plenty of Tesla owners in those…

It strange, as you black/red flag city dwellers seem to we simple country folk to be poorer and less able to achieve land and vehicle ownership than we banjo-strumming hillbillies. Perhaps when we see you driving your little electric bug cars and living in rat shacks in this current year we get much the same impression that you do from looking at photos of the dust bowl era, still apparently the modern city person's vision of how people live outside their enclaves.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#124

Post by plorkyeran »

agloeregrets wrote: post #95
foepys wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, there are entire continents where electric vehicles are simply not feasible. You cannot drive an EV 100km through mud and forests to get to a town just to charge it. Those EVs are not only very heavy and will sink in mud, they turn into bricks when empty. Have fun getting electricity into the jungle. A gas canister can be brought by anybody and filling the car up is quick. So most likely you will be ha…

Yup! Plus in the US the majority of all cars are not parked in a garage or driveway. How do those charge?

I see power cables running out to a car parked in front of a house fairly regularly.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#125

Post by admax88q »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #106
admax88q wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If, OTOH you are able to switch to a mindset where you keep your energy status in the back of your mind (and an EV car helps you with this a great deal) then you might be ready. Honestly that's a huge turn off for me. I have enough things on the back of my mind, tracking my "energy status" would have a significant opportunity cost by displacing more productive things.

Understandable, but with governments banning new combustion vehicle sales, the electric transition and need to shift how vehicles are used will occur eventually. I don't think EVs will reach the exact UX of combustion vehicles, nor do they have to (most charging can occur at home at night, people rarely road trip and need to charge from 0 to 100 SOC in 5 minutes), but people will have to be accepting that the experie…

Totally, I definitely intend for my next vehicle to be electric despite my naysaying.

I wish that EV vendors would let you "test drive" a vehicle over the course of a week. It's hard to imagine what your day to day charging experience would be by just driving around for an hour.

For most people, myself included, I bet the charging will actually be a non issue, probably even more convenient than gas, but it still feels like a big leap to take.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#126

Post by gaoshan »

Someone1234 wrote: post #62

I feel like the prices on electric vehicles are starting to become their biggest hurdle (instead of range, availability, or charging which are solved enough). If you're from California or New York, I'm sure $40K starting for this or a Model Y seems complexly within your means, but there's a large chunk of the US (by population AND land) where People love to spam $40K US "average" while entirely ignoring that the aver…

The Volkswagon ID.4 will be, after the $7,500 credit, in the low 30's. Still not cheap but much better than any other similarly spec'ed vehicle.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#127

Post by datavirtue »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #66
axaxs wrote: post #5

I'm kicking around the idea of an electric car, but the ranges of these things just utterly disappoint me. With some companies offering, or planning to offer 500ish mile ranges, it would feel immediately outdated to me to throw 40k on something with a ~200 mile range. Is battery tech that different between companies, is it cost prohibitive?

VW is pretty far behind Tesla in battery technology.[0] Still, this seems like a good car for a large number of drivers. The VW charging network is building out rapidly (I've noticed that VW's chargers are largely in the same locations as Tesla's superchargers. Wonder why?) The Tesla Model Y Long Range is rated at 326 miles and in my experience that's accurate and completely practical. As to your criterion of "500ish…

It is extremely common to fill up any ICE and get nearly 500 miles. It's almost like they sized the tanks to that standard.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#128

Post by the_duke »

Hamuko wrote: post #85
Someone1234 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is down to $3 and electric $12/kWh, with the state now charging electric vehicles higher registration fees yearly to offset the gas tax savings. There's likely small savings every year, but we're talking almost $20K price difference, maybe $12K with federal (and no state) rebate, you aren't going to be breaking even. Plus fun fact: My insurance would go up a lot with a Model 3 from my current vehicle, 25% more a…

The Model S was at least notorious for long and expensive repairs if you got into a crash. Not sure if that's the case for the Model 3 but Model S insurance rates are most probably high because of that.

Still the case for Model 3/Y.

Repairs can take months due to lack of spare parts.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#129

Post by freeone3000 »

munk-a wrote: post #35
ortusdux wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After swearing up and down that they would never do battery swaps, Tesla demonstrated a 90 second swap back in 2012. They held a few events in California to get enough swaps to meet ZEV benchmarks and get nearly $300mil. When they were called out they removed any reference to the program and pretended like it never happened. https://web.archive.org/web/20140331102655/http://www.teslam... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

Battery swaps are incredibly costly for the company - those units generally cost more than 10k - sometimes as high as 20k. Given that they are the majority of the cost of the vehicle it's not a great business proposition for manufacturers to offer to replace a battery for anything less than the majority of the cost of a new vehicle which consumers simply won't go for.

You get the uncharged battery back, though, which you can then charge and give to another person. It's like a propane cylinder swap.

Re: Volkswagen launches its first all-electric SUV, the ID.4

#130

Post by akomtu »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #118
Someone1234 wrote: post #62

I feel like the prices on electric vehicles are starting to become their biggest hurdle (instead of range, availability, or charging which are solved enough). If you're from California or New York, I'm sure $40K starting for this or a Model Y seems complexly within your means, but there's a large chunk of the US (by population AND land) where People love to spam $40K US "average" while entirely ignoring that the aver…

The "problem" in the US is the cheap gas, at least compared to EU. Taxing gas according to the CO2 cost would make it drastically different in TCO.

Half of the US population lives paycheck to paycheck and they need cars. I'm not sure their minimum wage can afford them carbon taxes.
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