TacoBello

oonowindoo

Yes they are $200 apart... but when both cost over $1200, i seriously doubt it makes any real difference to their buyers.
Biker was saying it is cheaper and it is better... Depends who you ask, Apple fans will tell you samsung is cheaper because it is cheap and it sucks. (I use Note 8 BTW)

So that is not a valid comparison.


VW and Toyota are sooooo much bigger than Tesla, i would compare the situation to be Mama Papa's shops vs. big corporation. While there are many who prefer the smaller shops, the Big corporations have their ways to make the small shops miserable and suffer a painful death, IF they chose to.
It almost has nothing to do with the product Tesla will be offering anymore.

Tesla was ahead of everyone and now all the big players decided to heavily invest in its market, does Tesla have the funds and resources to continue to stay ahead of everyone? Cuz that was their selling point.

TacoBello

oonowindoo

if you like apple, would you buy Samsung because it is 200 cheaper? or if you like Samsung, obviously you are not going to spend 200 more for Apple.
So yah it really makes no difference.. maybe it did to you... but most of the Android buyers will always buy some kind of android phones and Apple fans are hardcore as well...

Maybe they do exist, but i have yet met a Samsung/iphone user who makes the decision between Iphone and Samsung based on cost. most of them will buy the cheaper version of the same phone instead of jumping to the other side.

TacoBello

biker

But they won't. Someone mentioned that it costs Tesla about $38K to make the $35K version of the Model 3 (if that ever shows up). VW might be able to get that cost down a bit slightly but nowhere near $23K. They are not going to sell huge volumes of cars at a loss in hopes of putting someone else out of business.

oonowindoo

This happens to every thread in Car Talk at some point.

oonowindoo

Dont underestimate the bargaining power of VW and Toyota with their suppliers.
The cost sharing structure would be very different with VW/Toyota than Telsa.
VW and Toyota are not in business to put others out of business (even tho that could happen but probably unintentional), but they are in business to gain market shares and they will do whatever they need to gain those market shares, even if it means to sell cars at cost or lower. They can afford to do that... Tesla can't

For example, If it costs Tesla $38k to make the $35k version of the Model 3, i would think it should cost significantly less for Toyota and VW to build the same car, thus to sell them at a much lower price.
Tesla's whole supply chain has major issues and it is probably the reason why it costs them so much to build Model 3...
The silver lining is, it is because they cost so much, that is maybe why they have the status they do today.

Costco

Tesla is like an extreme example of when you don't let the beancounters win when it comes to engineering decisions.

oonowindoo

Yes... they have sped up the electrification of auto industry. But at some point the bean counters will catch up to them. They cannot escape the fate of a big corporation as they continue to grow.

kurtatx

Tesla has so much status that, should they ever go bankrupt, one of the major manufacturers would probably try to buy up their brand and technology.

oonowindoo

Yah they are not going to let the perception to go waste... after all that is probably the most valuable thing they have built, cuz E-cars are depreciating like no other.

kurtatx

I hadn't heard that but a quick google search confirmed it. Tesla dealers offering $68,000 for a $95,000 Model S. Dang

TacoBello

oonowindoo

#1 , we dont know if VW or Toyota will lose $$ from selling their "cheaper" version. All i said is they can afford to do so to enter a market to compete with Tesla. That is common practice in the business word, You can't just jump in and charge as much as the market leader for the same product. You Must offer some kind of incentive to start.

#2. Didn't Tesla say they lose $ from selling their $35k model 3 that costs them $38k to build? How are Tesla's investors any different from Toyota and VW?

#3 I really dont think there is any direct correlation between how much they charge on a specific model and how that will have real affects on the investor. Maybe on Tesla... not to Toyota and VW.
There are many factors that investors will gain or lose $. Just because you are charging at cost or lower than cost on 1 or 2 models does not mean the investors will loose $$. That is like saying you invested in Apple and they lowered their iPhone 11's MSRP by $200.... next year and all of a sudden you will lose $?

If anything, i see the total opposite, it does not matter how much VW/Toyota charges for their model 3 competitors. I think their stock price will rise due to the investment to compete with Tesla head to head = investors will earn $. Not sure if they will, but even if they lose in the beginning, it will have little to no effect on their business as a whole because the cost will be easily distributed. That is one of the biggest advantages for being #1 or #2.
I am not sure what happens to Tesla's investors' confidence when that happens.

SamDoe1

Samsung doesn't make a cheaper/better phone than Apple in the same way that Honda doesn't make a cheaper/better car than a BMW. They are different products catering to a different market.

In full disclosure I use a Pixel 2 and love it, will never use Apple.

upoorbro?

Also isn't $200CAD like $5?

srs?

Auto manufacturing is all about economies of scale. This is how they get costs down with buying parts in bulk and creating manufacturing efficiencies. In 2017, VAG manufactured somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 MILLION cars. Tesla can hardly put out 100k a year. Each of these cars isn't 100% unique either so the economies of scale for various components can be leveraged across the entire portfolio, not to mention lower NRE costs for not reinventing/redesigning things, help enormously.

I bet a VW eGolf would cost just as much as a Tesla 3 if they didn't leverage almost the entirety of the Golf product to make it. Speaking of the eGolf, they were able to produce a car that has a 125mi range for a cost of ~$30k (before tax breaks) in a totally half assed attempt without even trying. If they toss in even a moderate effort at this, they will absolutely clobber Tesla in every measurable way.

Tesla is definitely investor owned in the same way every major manufacturer is. No one likes to lose money and Tesla mitigates the loss on the car by offering options that should be standard in a car of that price that have a much higher margin. Because of that, the $35k Tesla would never exist much in the same way you'll never find an absolute base model Porsche or MB anywhere.

I definitely believe VW can drastically undercut Tesla on this one. They can basically take an already fully developed car that they'd be doing anyway and toss an electric drivetrain in it. On the flip side, Tesla has to also develop (and pay for developing) an entire car. Additionally, VW can utilize said drivetrain on a multitude of products all at once with one design effort. Electric A4? Sure, the eJetta comes with that for free. The previously mentioned eGolf was basically free. Same goes with all the other MQB cars, lol. The economies of scale are going to really drive prices down. It's only a matter of time.

biker

True, but on a pure EV car, the batteries are the biggest cost item and Tesla has been doing that for years now and way ahead of everyone else. VW may be able to make the rest of the car cheaper, but very unlikely on the battery, in the short term.

charliemike

SamDoe1

Audi has been doing the eTron for a while now. Jaguar has started the iPace line. BMW has the i3/i8, the 330e, 530e, and 730e. Ford has the Energi models, GM has the Bolt. All of these have been sidebar projects for these brands in addition to their "day job" and, as such, they haven't really put forth any actual effort in EV development. The minute they do, and it seems like now is that time, it'll be game over. Either that or Tesla will get bought out.

For example:
And this is likely to be one of the more expensive and exclusive of the various new electric cars hitting the market in the next few years. Lower cost ones will sell even more.

oonowindoo

I think that is where we have different views on things:

VW and Toyota will get the battery cheaper than Tesla, that is a given. What we dont know is by how much. But given by the volume, i would assume significantly. otherwise, our whole Business 101 course was a waste.

If VW and Toyota really want to do it, which it seems they will. Worst comes to worst, they will just build or go buy their own battery plant. They are big enough just to do that.

Costco

I'm just sad because I like my car to be noisy (no fake engine noises please)

Instant torque is great, however. And not having to fill up. And blowing the doors off of supercars 2-3x the price of your car, with your daily.

This is a burgeoning market and it's not exactly clear how to forecast projections for demand quite yet. Up to 50 Taycans per dealer though this is for a car that Motor Trend estimated will be "less than 85k"...

oonowindoo

With the exception like myself who have motion sickness, most of the people will get an EV as their primary or 2nd car eventually in the near future if the prices/range/recharging issue can get resolved.

The only way that gets resolved is if the big ones join the party.

00TL-P3.2

I'd be down for an electric commuter motorcycle, if the decent ones weren't $16k, and if I could plug in at the office, even just with a standard wall plug.

SamDoe1

https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/17/...and-more-info/

And so it begins...RIP Tesla.

oonowindoo

Is that the $30k Model 3 Tesla was talking about years ago?

SamDoe1

You mean the one we still haven't seen? Then yes, that one. Also, it was $35k.

kurtatx

Tesla fanboys are comparing VW to Blackberry. Always good for a laugh.

oonowindoo

How is that even relevant? VW is #1 and Blackberry is as good as dead.

nanxun

Brand-New Volkswagen Arrives at Dealer and Drops an F-Bomb to America

biker

Someone in shipping with too much time on their hands?

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I'm annoyed they couldn't fit the extra "F" in there to be grammatically correct...I would have dumped the A for it if they ran out of space.

charliemike

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Sad.

oonowindoo

What does Fuck mean in German? Maybe it means "Love" - Love of USA

biker

https://www.autonews.com/manufacturi...ical-shift-evs

WOLFSBURG, Germany -- If Volkswagen Group realizes its ambition of becoming the global leader in electric cars, it will be thanks to a radical and risky bet born out of the biggest calamity in its history.

The German giant has staked its future, to the tune of 80 billion euros ($91 billion), on being able to profitably mass-produce electric vehicles -- a feat no carmaker has come close to achieving.

So far mainstream automakers' electric plans have had one main goal: to protect profits gleaned from high-margin conventional cars by adding enough zero-emission vehicles to their fleet to meet clean-air rules.

Customers have meanwhile largely shunned electric vehicles because they are too expensive, can be inconvenient to charge and lack range.

The biggest strategy shift in Volkswagen's 80 years has its roots in a weekend crisis meeting at the Rothehof guesthouse in Wolfsburg on October 10, 2015, senior executives told Reuters.

At the meeting hosted by then VW brand chief Herbert Diess, nine top managers gathered on a cloudy Saturday afternoon to discuss the way forward after regulators blew the whistle on the company's emissions cheating, a scandal that cost it more than 27 billion euros in fines and tainted its name.

"It was an intense discussion, so was the realization that this could be an opportunity, if we jump far enough," said Juergen Stackmann, VW brand's board member for sales.


Just three days after the Rothehof meeting of the VW brand's management board, Volkswagen announced plans to develop an electric vehicle platform, codenamed MEB, paving the way for mass production of an affordable electric car.

For months after the Volkswagen scandal blew up in 2015, rival carmakers treated diesel-cheating as a "VW issue," according to industry experts. But regulators have since uncovered excessive emissions across the sector and unleashed a clampdown that undermines the business case for combustion engines, forcing a sector-wide rethink.

Now the "villain" of the VW scandal is likely to become the largest producer of electric cars in the world in coming years, analysts say, putting it in pole position to flood the market -- should the demand materialize.

"Decisions to convert the Emden factory (in Lower Saxony) to build electric cars, would never have happened without this Saturday meeting," said Stackmann, one of five senior VW executives who spoke to Reuters.

However the full scale of VW's ambitions were only revealed two months ago when it took the industry by surprise by pledging to spend 80 billion euros to develop electric vehicles and buy batteries, dwarfing the investment of rivals.
It plans to raise annual production of electric cars to 3 million by 2025, from 40,000 in 2018.

Strategic perilsIt's a risky bet.

With regulators and lawmakers, rather than customers, dictating what kind of vehicles can hit the road, analysts at Deloitte say the industry could produce 14 million electric cars for which there is no consumer demand.

It's also an all-or-nothing bet in the long run.

VW, whose ID electric car will hit showrooms in 2020, has set a deadline for ending mass production of combustion engines. The final generation of gasoline and diesel engines will be developed by 2026.

Arndt Ellinghorst, analyst at Evercore ISI, said betting on electric vehicles (EVs) could be risky because customers did not want to own cars dependent on street-charging facilities.

"What if people are still not ready to own EVs? Will adoption be the same in the U.S., Europe and China?" he said.

But he added that EU and Chinese emissions regulations made electric vehicle adoption inevitable and that being an early industry mover in that direction offered a "positive risk-reward."

Another by-product of the diesel scandal that quickened VW's electric drive, according to the senior executives, was a purge of the company's old guard, who became the focus of public and political anger.

This empowered Diess, a newcomer who had joined as VW brand boss shortly before U.S. regulators exposed the carmaker's emission test cheating.

Diess, who joined from BMW where he helped pioneer a ground-breaking electric vehicle, has since been appointed CEO of the parent Volkswagen Group, a multi-brand empire that includes Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini and Ducati.

Carmakers have failed to mass-produce electric cars profitably largely because of the prohibitive cost of battery packs which make up between 30 percent and 50 percent of the cost of an electric vehicle.

A 300-mile-range battery costs around $20,000, compared with a gasoline engine that costs around $5,000. Add to that another $2,000 for the electric motor and inverter, and the gap is even wider.

Even EV maker Tesla's cheapest car, the Model 3, is on sale in Germany at 55,400 euros, priced just below a base model Porsche Macan, a compact SUV. In the United States, Model 3 prices start at $42,900, following a price cut announced Wednesday.

VW believes its scale will give it an edge to build an electric vehicle costing no more than its current Golf model, about 20,000 euros, using its procurement clout as the world's largest car and truck maker to drive down the cost.

"We are Volkswagen, a brand for the people. For electric cars we need economies of scale. And VW, more than any other carmaker, can take advantage of this," a senior Volkswagen executive told Reuters, declining to be named.

The carmaker's electric-vehicle budget outstrips that of its closest competitor, Germany's Daimler AG, which has committed $42 billion. General Motors has said it plans to spend a combined $8 billion on electric and self-driving vehicles.

The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance said in late 2017 it would spend 10 billion euros by 2022 on developing electric and autonomous cars.

"On a 2025 view, we expect Volkswagen to be the No. 1 electric vehicles producer globally," UBS analyst Patrick Hummel said. "Tesla is likely to remain a niche player."



Stricter testingVW's test cheating using engine management software - "defeat devices" - resulted in the introduction of tougher pollution tests which revealed in 2016 and 2017 that emissions readings across the industry were up to 20 percent higher under real-world driving conditions compared with lab conditions.

This has raised the bar on the auto sector's efforts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, blamed for causing global warming.

EU lawmakers in December agreed a cut in carbon dioxide emissions from cars of 37.5 percent by 2030 compared with 2021 levels. This was after the European Union forced a 40 percent cut in emissions between 2007 and 2021.

"This goal is no longer reachable using combustion engines alone," Volkmar Denner, chief executive of Bosch, the world's biggest auto supplier, said about the 2030 proposals.

Carmakers have struggled to lower their average fleet emissions because of a shift in customer taste toward heavier, bigger trucks and SUVs, which make it harder to maintain the same levels of acceleration and comfort without increasing fuel consumption and pollution.

As the industry-wide scale of excessive emissions prompted European regulator to push through tougher laws late last year, VW executives concluded that purely electric cars were the most efficient way to meet carbon dioxide goals across its fleet.

This was the point of no return, according to executives, when the company made the final electric investment decisions and committed to staying the course it had plotted after the diesel scandal.

"After evaluating alternatives, we opted for electromobility," chief operating officer Ralf Brandstaetter told Reuters about VW's deliberations in November.

U.S. plans

In the United States, VW's move to EVs will have a dramatic impact.

Last month, VW said it is adding a second Chattanooga assembly plant in Tennessee to build electric vehicles for Volkswagen and potentially other brands, with an $800 million investment expected to create 1,000 jobs at the German automaker's only U.S. assembly operation.

VW announced at the Detroit auto show that the new factory -- which will be built next to the existing plant producing internal combustion vehicles -- will begin producing EVs for North America in 2022. The EVs will be built on VW's modular electric toolkit chassis, known as MEB.

When production begins, the Chattanooga site will be one of six VW Group assembly plants globally dedicated to producing battery-electric vehicles, and the only one in North America. The 3.4 million-square-foot Chattanooga plant employs about 3,500 workers.

VW has committed to an aggressive battery-electric plan for North America, beginning with the I.D. Crozz crossover set to arrive in the United States in 2020, and including what the automaker calls a "multipurpose" electric vehicle based on the I.D. Buzz concept. The I.D. Buzz was a retro styled version of VW's former Microbus, and is expected to return to the U.S. in 2022.

SamDoe1

I'll say it again.

RIP Tesla.

00TL-P3.2

Volkswagen Is '100 Percent Investigating' a New Pickup for the US - The Drive

00TL-P3.2

https://www.motor1.com/news/359201/v...ng-wheel-caps/

@SamDoe1

From the comments:
@civicdrivr

SamDoe1

^ So true.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

I'm kinda blown away that people are dropping $160 on floating center caps. Kinda silly

But that fucking volume knob...