Audi Q6 e-tron EV

[tescroft]

I'm not downplaying either dieselgate or the magnitude of the change Tesla has brought about in the auto industry, but VW, of which Audi is a part, will launch 30 new electric vehicles by 2025 and is targeting 25% of its sales to be electric by then. At current production levels of 10+ million, that would be more than 2.5 million electric vehicles a year. That's nothing to sneeze it.

To be honest, 30 EVs by 2025 is not very much for this group of companies. Remember, 8 years is a lot. 8 years ago, Tesla started selling the roadster in Europe ....

VW owns eight car labels. One label, Porsche, has 30 models and 7 model lines currently by its own. All over the group, they have way over 100 models. In that 8 year timeframe, some of these models will get two refreshs already, mostly ICE refreshs. Basicly, it means they plan doing 75% of their business with ICEs by 2025 and they won't do anything that will hurt that business seriously.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

In spite of this Tesla will continue to succeed.

I am on the record as believing Model 3 will succed (despite what many here I guess would consider a critical outlook on Tesla on my part), so I am not disagreeing with that part at all.

There are very good reasons Tesla 400,000 pre-orders on the Model 3.

Sure. They've done well in willing a BEV drivetrain into existence and bringing that closer to the masses. They've changed the world and the inertia of the automotive market singlehandedly. Great achievement. Whatever other criticisms I have of Tesla, that remains a solid fact in my books.

There are very good reasons Audi doesn't.

Mostly it is because they have nothing to offer, though. And that is in part due to dropping the ball after the first e-tron, sure. And in other part due to the difficulty of being an established player and revolutionizing your own business... But I do think they've taken things seriously since then and that's why I'm betting on Audi being the second to come up with a serious BEV offering after Tesla.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

To be honest, 30 EVs by 2025 is not very much for this group of companies. They own 8 car labels. One label, Porsche, has 30 models and 7 model lines currently by its own. All over the group, they have way over 100 models. In that 8 year timeframe, some of these models will get two refreshs already, mostly ICE refreshs. Basicly, it means they plan doing 75% of their business with ICEs by 2025 and they won't do anything that will hurt that business seriously.

We shall see, of course, but personally I would concentrate just on the Audi and Volkswagen brands on this one (perhaps Porsche, but that's irrelevant for volumes). There seems to be serious efforts there. If they catch fire, and if they have solutions for the battery question lined up (I'm not confident the echo chamber of TMC is quite right about that), then those model-lines may expand quite rapidly.

After all, Tesla is attacking the market with just three models. Currently the other players have no large-battery premium BEVs on the market. None. And even non-premium, there is only the Bolt, in the large-battery category. Things will be different when they have several, it doesn't require dozens necessarily...

 

[tescroft]

My point is, if they would take it seriously, they would seriously invest in battery manufacturing and charging infrastructure. Tesla started 2014 (3 years ago) with the Gigafactory and 2012 (5 years ago) with their Supercharger Network. The Gigafactory will be completed by 2020, 6 years after the beginning. All VW group does is announce that they will do 30 models in 8 years, but no trustworthy plan how to succeed with EVs. No projects for batteries. No Euro spent on charging infrastructure. With this low level of comittment, I don't believe for a second that VW group is serious about producing 2.5M EVs per year.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

By the way, mind you, I am not dismissive of the battery question in general. I agree these companies need to have the battery supply figured out. I am just not as pessimistic about their ability to do that - once seriously on the case - as some are here. If anyone, I see the Volkswagen group having the clout to solve that question - of the old players.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

All VW group does is announce that they will do 30 models in 8 years, but no trustworthy plan how to succeed with EVs. No projects for batteries. No Euro spent on charging infrastructure. With this low level of comittment, I don't believe for a second that VW group is serious about producing 2.5M EVs per year.

Or perhaps we just don't know what they are doing, sufficiently. Is it possible they are peddling vaporware again? Sure, it is possible. But it is not something the Germans are really known for. Once they set their minds to something, they get results on an industrial scale.

The issue so far has been setting their minds on it more than anything... That's why I am now setting Audi apart from the others. I believe they have set their mind on this.

I understand some disagree. Fair enough. Certainly enough has happened in the past to justify doubts as well.

 

[tescroft]

One thing with change is you need a strong vision people believe in. A vision that makes sense. A vision that gives you the answers to the pitfalls involved. Engineers are bright people, they smell if something is fishy in terms of strategy. If they are in doubt, they will not be commited to the goals set by management. The problem is though, it's not just the drive drain that needs to be changed. There is a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be changed. Battery manufacturing, software deployment, sales (!), charging infrastructure, optioning strategy. Doing such fundamental changes in big companies is incredible hard. We will see what is easier, ramping up high volume production or changing cultures in a big company. Welcome to change hell.

 

[lux_cars]

My point is, if they would take it seriously, they would seriously invest in battery manufacturing and charging infrastructure. Tesla started 2014 (3 years ago) with the Gigafactory and 2012 (5 years ago) with their Supercharger Network. The Gigafactory will be completed by 2020, 6 years after the beginning. All VW group does is announce that they will do 30 models in 8 years, but no trustworthy plan how to succeed with EVs. No projects for batteries. No Euro spent on charging infrastructure. With this low level of comittment, I don't believe for a second that VW group is serious about producing 2.5M EVs per year.

Not necessarily. Tesla likes doing a lot of things in-house not every company takes that approach. Look at Apple for instance.

They may very well rely on obtaining batteries through other suppliers/vendors. Same goes for charging infrastructure. Automakers didn't build their own gas stations. Similarly, it would be quite silly if every automaker ended up building their own charging network. Ultimately, when EVs are being sold in large quantities, the market will building charging infrastructure. I bet that once EVs seriously take off, charging infrastructure will follow rapidly and you'll end up with many more third party charging stations than any single automaker will want/be able to build.

 

[thegruf]

Mostly it is because they have nothing to offer, though.

Fact is that Tesla got iro 400,000 deposits on Model 3 announcement.

Fact is that VAG Audi have never got any notable quantity of deposits on any of their EV announcements EVER, even now with the latest effort supposedly due for launch within a year.

Fact is that VAG/Audi/VW have shown themselves to be a deceitful lying operation at the highest level.

Fact is that the three main German auto manufacturers are now being investigated for acting as a Cartel ... by the German regulators of all people. More incorrect market abusing business practices.

Fact is that VAG Audi have no in-house battery facility such as Tesla's gigfactory. They have no control over battery purchasing, market forces will prevail and drive prices up as more manufacturers come on stream. They do have huge buying power for sure, but so do many others. And I am betting China will very quickly ramp up EV production in China ... for China, so that will suck up capacity overwhelmingly. China are fully expecting to dominate world auto manufacturing in the next decade. History tells us they will do precisely that.

Fact is that Audi, even if they were to consume the entire market of Li Ion cells at the expense of every other manufacturer they could only product twice as many cars of similar capacity to Tesla. Fact is that that is still an insignificant quantity in terms of true high volume production to VAG Audi so costs will necessarily be much higher.

Fact is that I owned three premium model Audis and had significant problems with all of them as well as atrocious dealer service.
Fact is that I have owned two Tesla's and not had any major problems with them and have had nothing but delightful service from Tesla SCs

Why on earth would I go backwards to an Audi?

 

[tescroft]

If gas station companies would have ended up only selling 1 dl per hour instead of liters per seconds, with the need for an individual regional company contract to be signed first for customers, with the need for a special regional chipcard per gas station company, I would assume that ICE car companies would definitly have started doing their own gas station networks to do things better.

The more I think about it, the higher the advantage of Tesla gets. The supercharger network is the better product than any of their cars. It is incredible what such a small company has achieved in that short period of time. It exceeds even the superlatives others use in their press releases.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Fact is that I owned three premium model Audis and had significant problems with all of them as well as atrocious dealer service.
Fact is that I have owned two Tesla's and not had any major problems with them and have had nothing but delightful service from Tesla SCs

Why on earth would I go backwards to an Audi?

You do realize that there are people on this very forum and this very thread who have the completely opposite experience with Tesla vs. Audi...

I think it would be more useful to stick to the objective realities and not our likes and dislikes. Your battery analysis - which I will return to - is certainly the sort of objective stuff that IMO matters.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

The more I think about it, the higher the advantage of Tesla gets. The supercharger network is the better product than any of their cars. It is incredible what such a small company has achieved in that short period of time. It exceeds even the superlatives others use in their press releases

It is impressive and important, no doubt, but I suggest there is plenty of market to saturate with a large-battery BEV alone - for the daily commute market. Most BEV drivers will do most of their charging at home or at work. I Supercharge maybe once a year, and it is my view it is of no consequence to a portion of the drivers due to the fact that most charging is done at home and at work for them.

Mind you, I'm not saying the charging network is not an issue, I just don't think it is holding the Germans back at this stage at all. Lack of product on the market is what is holding them back - IMO they have plenty of customers open to them, before they start hitting a saturation point there... The CCS network, thus, has time to grow in the meanwhile.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I think @thegruf we are better off agreeing to disagree on the portions where we agree/disagree, so I'll try to keep this brief, just to document the agreements and disagreements.

Fact is that Tesla got iro 400,000 deposits on Model 3 announcement.

Agreed. Even more since then.

Fact is that VAG Audi have never got any notable quantity of deposits on any of their EV announcements EVER, even now with the latest effort supposedly due for launch within a year.

Agreed, though I argue this is irrelevant. They don't have a serious offering on the market yet, nor at a Model 3 pricepoint. We shall see what the demand is when they do.

Fact is that VAG/Audi/VW have shown themselves to be a deceitful lying operation at the highest level.

Fact is that the three main German auto manufacturers are now being investigated for acting as a Cartel ... by the German regulators of all people. More incorrect market abusing business practices.

Possible, however Tesla has been shown to be quite deceitful themselves, so IMO irrelevant. I will say that dieselgate, though, is relevant in the sense that it has probably propelled Audi (and the group) into taking BEVs seriously...

Fact is that VAG Audi have no in-house battery facility such as Tesla's gigfactory.

True today.

They have no control over battery purchasing, market forces will prevail and drive prices up as more manufacturers come on stream.

Audi's battery acquisition plans and potential are IMO unknown, we don't know enough, so it comes down to what we believe. Mind you, I'm not saying batteries are not an issue especially for the 2018 model, but I do believe there is a serious plan and capability to execute a ramp-up for Audi that starts in 2018.

Fact is that Audi, even if they were to consume the entire market of Li Ion cells at the expense of every other manufacturer they could only product twice as many cars of similar capacity to Tesla.

Possible, short-term. But twice as much as Tesla (even half as much as Tesla) would certainly fulfill my point about Audi being the second serious BEV player after Tesla. I do assume Tesla will lead in BEVs still in 2019, so my point is more about which company do I think will be coming out with a serious response to Tesla - and that I think will be Audi. Which is why I was surprised to see so much disbelief and hatred early on this thread...

I guess some of that hatred is about the dieselgate and not about the topic itself at all.

Fact is that that is still an insignificant quantity in terms of true high volume production to VAG Audi so costs will necessarily be much higher.

Speculation. Personally I doubt it.

 

[transpondster]

Fact is that VAG Audi have never got any notable quantity of deposits on any of their EV announcements EVER

Audi have over 2000 reservations in Norway

 

[gjunky]

The more I think about it, the higher the advantage of Tesla gets. The supercharger network is the better product than any of their cars. It is incredible what such a small company has achieved in that short period of time. It exceeds even the superlatives others use in their press releases.

This

 

[techmaven]

There are plenty of investigations in Europe on-going that suggest other manufactures were in on similar schemes. Never OK, nor am I excusing any of that. But I do consider it irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

No, no, no... if you don't understand the difference between what VAG did and what everyone else did, then that's at the crux of your VW apologistic stance. As far as we know right now, everyone else passed the tests, but the way the tests were set up didn't reflect real world usage. After the scandal, the various governmental agencies around the world that set up the tests are re-examining the testing to better reflect real world results... and the vehicles that passed the earlier tests would have problems passing "real world" testing.

VAG chose to cheat on the tests in order to save on cost of goods sold and R&D. They deliberately promoted "clean diesels" when they knew they were not clean. And when they were caught, instead of fessing up, they continued to delay and lie and cheat and delay. EPA regulators kept giving them time and space to come up with explanations expecting that VW wouldn't be so audacious as to continue to lie and cheat even after being caught red handed. So EPA thought maybe it was something they didn't account for in their testing, or some other misunderstanding. But no... VAG chose to make bank on the idea that the fine would likely be too small with respect to the profits they made and the marketshare they gained. The positive feelings you might have for VW and Audi, the slogan, "truth in engineering" is built on this lie. I remember when the reputation of VW and Audi wasn't this way and I was very sympathetic towards Audi after the whole un-intended acceleration sham by CBS. I owned an Audi right after that.

As far as EVs, it is clear that VAG's approach was again more lies and deception. PR release after PR release, year after year, and their EV products were lackluster. But wait... it's all coming! Don't buy that Tesla or Chevy, or whatever, VW/Audi/Porsche will have great stuff coming soon. This is classic Microsoft FUD behavior back in the day. The Porsche Mission-E specs relies on battery chemistry that doesn't exist yet in production. And really, putting out a VW ID Buzz specs for 2022 production? These are all paper releases. They don't have the chemistry. They don't have the battery production. They aren't building any of this yet. Maybe it will become true one day and when it does, then they can talk about it.

In the meantime, we have VW Group amongst other automakers claiming that China's EV credit requirements are too aggressive:

Global automakers call on China to ease "impossible" electric car rules

They are also part of the group that asked for the EPA to rollback fuel economy standards for 2025:

Automakers ask EPA to overturn recent review of fuel-efficiency standards

Does that sound like an automaker aggressively pursuing EVs? If they really were doing that, they wouldn't mind the standards ratcheting up since they would be ahead of the curve. Instead, we have the opposite. Tesla doesn't mind if the emissions standards and EV requirements go up. But somehow VW Group does... and this is the real effort, not the PR releases of vaporware. The money spent on lobbying is where the company really wants to go.

 

[GoTslaGo]

With the epidemic of acronyms on this forum, it's nice to see someone spelling things out, even when 99.9% of us would recognize "LG" more than "Lucky Goldstar".

Thanks for that! Way back when I went to CES and asked the LG rep what LG stood for. She said "Life's Good". So I took her at her word. Now I know better!

 

[lux_cars]

No, no, no... if you don't understand the difference between what VAG did and what everyone else did, then that's at the crux of your VW apologistic stance. As far as we know right now, everyone else passed the tests, but the way the tests were set up didn't reflect real world usage. After the scandal, the various governmental agencies around the world that set up the tests are re-examining the testing to better reflect real world results... and the vehicles that passed the earlier tests would have problems passing "real world" testing.

VAG chose to cheat on the tests in order to save on cost of goods sold and R&D. They deliberately promoted "clean diesels" when they knew they were not clean. And when they were caught, instead of fessing up, they continued to delay and lie and cheat and delay. EPA regulators kept giving them time and space to come up with explanations expecting that VW wouldn't be so audacious as to continue to lie and cheat even after being caught red handed. So EPA thought maybe it was something they didn't account for in their testing, or some other misunderstanding. But no... VAG chose to make bank on the idea that the fine would likely be too small with respect to the profits they made and the marketshare they gained. The positive feelings you might have for VW and Audi, the slogan, "truth in engineering" is built on this lie. I remember when the reputation of VW and Audi wasn't this way and I was very sympathetic towards Audi after the whole un-intended acceleration sham by CBS.

As far as EVs, it is clear that VAG's approach was again more lies and deception. PR release after PR release, year after year, and their EV products were lackluster. But wait... it's all coming! Don't buy that Tesla or Chevy, or whatever, VW/Audi/Porsche will have great stuff coming soon. The Porsche Mission-E specs relies on battery chemistry that doesn't exist yet in production. And really, putting out a VW ID Buzz specs for 2022 production? These are all paper releases. They don't have the chemistry. They don't have the battery production. They aren't building any of this yet. Maybe it will become true one day and when it does, then they can talk about it.

In the meantime, we have VW Group amongst other automakers claiming that China's EV credit requirements are too aggressive:

Global automakers call on China to ease "impossible" electric car rules

They are also part of the group that asked for the EPA to rollback fuel economy standards for 2025:

Automakers ask EPA to overturn recent review of fuel-efficiency standards

Does that sound like an automaker aggressively pursuing EVs? If they really were doing that, they wouldn't mind the standards ratcheting up since they would be ahead of the curve. Instead, we have the opposite. Tesla doesn't mind if the emissions standards and EV requirements go up. But somehow VW Group does... and this is the real effort, not the PR releases of vaporware. The money spent on lobbying is where the company really wants to go.

At the end of the day, VW group and its Audi subsidiary are a business. If the market wants EVs, they will make them because it is in their self interest. I think at the very least, they are committed to finding this out through trial. And to do that, they will at least launch some serious BEVs (e-tron Quattro, e-tron Quattro Sportback, Porsche Mission-e etc). If the market responds well, they will go all in. Why wouldn't they? Do they not want to survive and thrive? If on the other hand, the reception to these products is poor, then I wouldn't at all be surprised if they pulled back and continued their ICE focus. But why does anyone doubt they WILL launch this vehicle that they are already taking deposits for in 2 (albeit small) countries and are doing final testing for on the roads?

 

[tescroft]

It is important to recognize this cheating affects not only VW branded cars, but other brands of the Volkswagen group.

Switzerland just banned Porsche Cayenne Euro-6 norm diesels cars because they still cheat and sell cars with cheating software. They are using an engine built by Audi. This is so staggering. Also cars fulfilling the latest norm are affected. Although cought 2015, 2 years ago, the STILL cheat and still tried to sell cars with cheating software.

 

[SwTslaGrl]

In Germany one state owns 20% of VW and politicians are board members. The politicians are also responsible for the citizens including 70,000 staff at the VW home plant in Wolfsburg and thousands more working at an engine factory at Salzgitter.

German parties call for tougher VW oversight after Lower Saxony scandal

I hope they can change and bring the promised all-electric cars to the market.