I don’t get thesr automakers, who is this made for, don’t they see that tesla is killing it with their largr batteries. Why can’t they put a 600miles battery with 2 motors for awd, get some fake noises/feels when changing gears, get some smaller rims with more rubber and put the best brake system for an 18" wheel - which I think is the Brembo Sensify. Keep the physical buttons for important features for easy access, add a huge lcd panel for navigation and include carplay/android auto wirelessly - done deal. Make it cost as much as a full blown tesla model s and call it a day - you just stole 90% of the market. Add quick charging system and then you just gotta start building better charging stations.
Wait tesla is killing them and if it wasn’t for Musk going full adolf, he could have had the universal people’s car.
I don’t get thesr automakers, who is this made for, don’t they see that tesla is killing it with their largr batteries.
It is made for people living in places where you maybe don’t need to drive 50 miles to go to the nearest mall… a car with 600 miles autonomy would be an overkill if you just need to drive about 10/20 miles a day while commuting.
Why can’t they put a 600miles battery
because they are useless for the target market.
If you don’t need to drive that long distance for everything, you don’t need big batteries with all the associate problems (weight, dimension and so on) that in the end don’t give you any real bonus if not the fact that maybe you can recharge it less often.
The problem is that the battery degrades, so it’s a good idea to keep it charges to 60-80% so that it last way longer. If you have 600 miles of max range then that means you can easily have 360-480 miles for your driving. This is overkill as well right ? Wrong, if you live in a cold climate it practically gets halved so now you have 180-240 miles of driving.
Let’s say it’s summer though, now you want to drive 600 miles to your nearest ocean/sea and want to sightsee along the way. With a battery that big you might have to charge once and not even fully to have enough confidence driving to places where charging might be limited.
That’s why smaller batteries make sense only if you use the car for daily commuting, now you need to rent or buy a proper long range gas car or ev car - which now costs you quite a bit more or adds inconvenience. With tesla the problem is almost solved, but they have problematic political views and minimalistic interiors and a max battery of 402 miles. So yeah I think it’s worth it to make a car that costs 3x what VW are pushing, but is useful to everybody.
The problem is that the battery degrades, so it’s a good idea to keep it charges to 60-80% so that it last way longer. If you have 600 miles of max range then that means you can easily have 360-480 miles for your driving. This is overkill as well right ? Wrong, if you live in a cold climate it practically gets halved so now you have 180-240 miles of driving.
Fine, but you still fail to look how the car is used. A battery that big also mean more weight (and thus more energy needed) and it can make sense if you use the car almost always for longer trips. For shorter drive it make more sense to have a smaller battery and recharge more often.,
Let’s say it’s summer though, now you want to drive 600 miles to your nearest ocean/sea and want to sightsee along the way.
Here you fail to consider the target market. EU and US are very different geographically. In US a car with bigger batteries can make sense, in EU probably not that much.
VW simply design a car for the market where they want to sell it, which make sense in my opinion.
With a battery that big you might have to charge once and not even fully to have enough confidence driving to places where charging might be limited.
That would be a problem anyway, with limited charging options you could arrive at the sea but then have problem returning home (but this is a problem that is slowly going away)
That’s why smaller batteries make sense only if you use the car for daily commuting, now you need to rent or buy a proper long range gas car or ev car - which now costs you quite a bit more or adds inconvenience. With tesla the problem is almost solved, but they have problematic political views and minimalistic interiors and a max battery of 402 miles. So yeah I think it’s worth it to make a car that costs 3x what VW are pushing, but is useful to everybody.
I don’t know how may miles you need to drive for your daily commute that need to have such big battery but in the supposed target market of the VW even a 180 miles battery can easily cover your weekly commuting.
So yes, you are right that a bigger battery is usefull but it really depend on where you plan to sell your car. Not everywhere you need that kind of mileage daily and you need also to consider other factors like the weight and size of the car.
You are correct on many of those points. But lets look for edge cases - people living in apartments, they can’t charge their cars when there are no garages, so they need to do what normal people do with gas cars - go to the gas station to charge. So if you have a 600 miles car and drive 35 miles per day that’s enough to supercharge once per week for 30+ minutes and be good for the rest of the week - good for the battery, good for wait times, good for not pissing off the person buying the car as they don’t have to waste multiple hours per week.
If your point is that it’s inneficient to carry heavy batteries around I would agree, but isn’t it less efficient to use gas, to have 2 cars instead of 1, to have to rent a car, etc. I think it balances out and with new battery technology you’ll see that they’ll start competing more fiercely with range, but there is a sweet spot and I think it’s 600 miles, if the battery drain is not affected by cold/hot weather 360 miles would be a good sweetspot.
I hope the market appreciates this new model, but highly doubt it - most of the other things I suggested in the original post also affect if the buyer would decide to spend their money on the car. I don’t think it’s unrealistic for VW/Audi to make something like this at a competitive price of $120k - same as the starting price for a BMW M5.
This is why there are no plans to try to sell something like this in the US. I drive three hours each way on day-trips fairly often, and a couple times a year I drive around 1000 miles per day for longer trips. Even people who live in cities with short commutes often want to travel to places several hours away pretty regularly. Here you can drive for hours and hours and hours and not even leave the state. It’s not like we can take a train either.
couple times a year I drive around 1000 miles per day
You can use the savings of having a $20k city car to rent a $70k monster car a couple of times per year, and come out way ahead. You probably need more luggage space on those trips anyway.
The car I drive was only $22k new and it’s able to drive moderate jeep trails and get me deep into the forest and up mountains on unmaintained roads/trails which when I’m not on a trip for work, that’s where I’m going. You can’t rent vehicles like that in my area. I have a Thule hard sided cargo carrier on the roof to hold the extra gear.
Regen comes in all different strengths depending on what the automaker decides is appropriate for that car and the budget assigned to it. Cheap EVs like this one you can normally turn it off or on, and may be get a one pedal mode.
Something like the latest Taycan is pretty brutal with it set to its highest level when traveling at speed and that’s just lifting off the throttle. I feather the throttle when using regen to adjust the level it gives me, otherwise it would be an awful experience for my passengers, bit like some one stamping on the brake every time you want to slow down. Using the throttle to adjust the regen is no different to using the brake pedal progressively once you get used to it.
Regen is there to supplement the brakes not replace them for emergency or other unplanned stops. Once you doing an emergency stop you are at the mercy of the ABS system anyway, as that will limit your stopping distance based on the actual grip you have at that moment in time.
There’s that, but the problem is weight, with a 600mile range battery it’s gonna be a heavy car, with small 18 inch tires and more rubber to make the ride softer you can’t fit large piston brakes, so you need to make changes to improve the overall experience - think about a system that stops a small EV with the weight of a large SUV faster than a sports car. It would make for an amazing driving experience as EVs have great acceleration, just not the best weight balance, even though it’s mostly kept to the floor for a lower point of gravity. Not to mention you would be saving lives in the case of an accident.
That’s one of the least important contributions to ride softness.
It would make for an amazing driving experience
Going forward and stopping are the easiest parts of a vehicle’s driving experience to implement. Now try getting them to corner well-- that’s more challenging. And nobody needs 3-second 0-to-60 times in normal driving conditions.
Not to mention you would be saving lives in the case of an accident.
You’d be improving the odds for those inside the vehicle at the expense of other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. The environmental impact of manufacture is also directly proportional to vehicle mass.
Anyway, too much of your analysis is based on the current poor energy density of batteries, which has good potential for improvement in the coming years. SUV-sized EVs are an entry point in the market, but regulators should be providing incentives for manufacturers to shrink them instead of staying with the present unsatisfactorily large size, which is not a positive feature, any more than it is for gasoline-powered SUVs.
Well this car is for people who don’t want to spend the kind of money you need to spend on a Tesla. This one is supposed to be cheaper than the Model 3. Also the car you described exists. Porsche, Mercedes and Lotus are selling Model S competitors. The only reason why people drive Model S here in Europe is because Tesla had first mover advantage. Not because they are great cars. People buy them nowadays because a huge supply has hit the used market.
I don’t get thesr automakers, who is this made for, don’t they see that tesla is killing it with their largr batteries. Why can’t they put a 600miles battery with 2 motors for awd, get some fake noises/feels when changing gears, get some smaller rims with more rubber and put the best brake system for an 18" wheel - which I think is the Brembo Sensify. Keep the physical buttons for important features for easy access, add a huge lcd panel for navigation and include carplay/android auto wirelessly - done deal. Make it cost as much as a full blown tesla model s and call it a day - you just stole 90% of the market. Add quick charging system and then you just gotta start building better charging stations.
Wait tesla is killing them and if it wasn’t for Musk going full adolf, he could have had the universal people’s car.
It is made for people living in places where you maybe don’t need to drive 50 miles to go to the nearest mall… a car with 600 miles autonomy would be an overkill if you just need to drive about 10/20 miles a day while commuting.
because they are useless for the target market.
If you don’t need to drive that long distance for everything, you don’t need big batteries with all the associate problems (weight, dimension and so on) that in the end don’t give you any real bonus if not the fact that maybe you can recharge it less often.
The problem is that the battery degrades, so it’s a good idea to keep it charges to 60-80% so that it last way longer. If you have 600 miles of max range then that means you can easily have 360-480 miles for your driving. This is overkill as well right ? Wrong, if you live in a cold climate it practically gets halved so now you have 180-240 miles of driving.
Let’s say it’s summer though, now you want to drive 600 miles to your nearest ocean/sea and want to sightsee along the way. With a battery that big you might have to charge once and not even fully to have enough confidence driving to places where charging might be limited.
That’s why smaller batteries make sense only if you use the car for daily commuting, now you need to rent or buy a proper long range gas car or ev car - which now costs you quite a bit more or adds inconvenience. With tesla the problem is almost solved, but they have problematic political views and minimalistic interiors and a max battery of 402 miles. So yeah I think it’s worth it to make a car that costs 3x what VW are pushing, but is useful to everybody.
Fine, but you still fail to look how the car is used. A battery that big also mean more weight (and thus more energy needed) and it can make sense if you use the car almost always for longer trips. For shorter drive it make more sense to have a smaller battery and recharge more often.,
Here you fail to consider the target market. EU and US are very different geographically. In US a car with bigger batteries can make sense, in EU probably not that much.
VW simply design a car for the market where they want to sell it, which make sense in my opinion.
That would be a problem anyway, with limited charging options you could arrive at the sea but then have problem returning home (but this is a problem that is slowly going away)
I don’t know how may miles you need to drive for your daily commute that need to have such big battery but in the supposed target market of the VW even a 180 miles battery can easily cover your weekly commuting.
So yes, you are right that a bigger battery is usefull but it really depend on where you plan to sell your car. Not everywhere you need that kind of mileage daily and you need also to consider other factors like the weight and size of the car.
You are correct on many of those points. But lets look for edge cases - people living in apartments, they can’t charge their cars when there are no garages, so they need to do what normal people do with gas cars - go to the gas station to charge. So if you have a 600 miles car and drive 35 miles per day that’s enough to supercharge once per week for 30+ minutes and be good for the rest of the week - good for the battery, good for wait times, good for not pissing off the person buying the car as they don’t have to waste multiple hours per week.
If your point is that it’s inneficient to carry heavy batteries around I would agree, but isn’t it less efficient to use gas, to have 2 cars instead of 1, to have to rent a car, etc. I think it balances out and with new battery technology you’ll see that they’ll start competing more fiercely with range, but there is a sweet spot and I think it’s 600 miles, if the battery drain is not affected by cold/hot weather 360 miles would be a good sweetspot.
I hope the market appreciates this new model, but highly doubt it - most of the other things I suggested in the original post also affect if the buyer would decide to spend their money on the car. I don’t think it’s unrealistic for VW/Audi to make something like this at a competitive price of $120k - same as the starting price for a BMW M5.
This is why there are no plans to try to sell something like this in the US. I drive three hours each way on day-trips fairly often, and a couple times a year I drive around 1000 miles per day for longer trips. Even people who live in cities with short commutes often want to travel to places several hours away pretty regularly. Here you can drive for hours and hours and hours and not even leave the state. It’s not like we can take a train either.
You can use the savings of having a $20k city car to rent a $70k monster car a couple of times per year, and come out way ahead. You probably need more luggage space on those trips anyway.
The car I drive was only $22k new and it’s able to drive moderate jeep trails and get me deep into the forest and up mountains on unmaintained roads/trails which when I’m not on a trip for work, that’s where I’m going. You can’t rent vehicles like that in my area. I have a Thule hard sided cargo carrier on the roof to hold the extra gear.
EVs don’t need fancy brakes because they use regenerative braking.
https://www.engadget.com/how-the-rising-popularity-of-e-vs-could-lead-to-a-resurgence-of-drum-brakes-170000388.html
I am not sure that in EU you can omologate a car wihout classic brakes.
Regenerative braking is great for slowing down gradually, but when you really need to stop quick, it’s your brakes that will do most of the work.
I wouldn’t trust any vehicle with front drums in a panic stop.
Which EVs have front drum brakes?
Regen comes in all different strengths depending on what the automaker decides is appropriate for that car and the budget assigned to it. Cheap EVs like this one you can normally turn it off or on, and may be get a one pedal mode.
Something like the latest Taycan is pretty brutal with it set to its highest level when traveling at speed and that’s just lifting off the throttle. I feather the throttle when using regen to adjust the level it gives me, otherwise it would be an awful experience for my passengers, bit like some one stamping on the brake every time you want to slow down. Using the throttle to adjust the regen is no different to using the brake pedal progressively once you get used to it.
Regen is there to supplement the brakes not replace them for emergency or other unplanned stops. Once you doing an emergency stop you are at the mercy of the ABS system anyway, as that will limit your stopping distance based on the actual grip you have at that moment in time.
There’s that, but the problem is weight, with a 600mile range battery it’s gonna be a heavy car, with small 18 inch tires and more rubber to make the ride softer you can’t fit large piston brakes, so you need to make changes to improve the overall experience - think about a system that stops a small EV with the weight of a large SUV faster than a sports car. It would make for an amazing driving experience as EVs have great acceleration, just not the best weight balance, even though it’s mostly kept to the floor for a lower point of gravity. Not to mention you would be saving lives in the case of an accident.
That’s one of the least important contributions to ride softness.
Going forward and stopping are the easiest parts of a vehicle’s driving experience to implement. Now try getting them to corner well-- that’s more challenging. And nobody needs 3-second 0-to-60 times in normal driving conditions.
You’d be improving the odds for those inside the vehicle at the expense of other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. The environmental impact of manufacture is also directly proportional to vehicle mass.
Anyway, too much of your analysis is based on the current poor energy density of batteries, which has good potential for improvement in the coming years. SUV-sized EVs are an entry point in the market, but regulators should be providing incentives for manufacturers to shrink them instead of staying with the present unsatisfactorily large size, which is not a positive feature, any more than it is for gasoline-powered SUVs.
Well this car is for people who don’t want to spend the kind of money you need to spend on a Tesla. This one is supposed to be cheaper than the Model 3. Also the car you described exists. Porsche, Mercedes and Lotus are selling Model S competitors. The only reason why people drive Model S here in Europe is because Tesla had first mover advantage. Not because they are great cars. People buy them nowadays because a huge supply has hit the used market.
They do that for more expensive models.
The advantage of small batteries is higher efficiency and more range per charge hour in addition to a cheaper car.