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Last week Monday VW opened up its pre-orders list for the ID.3, its first all-electric car built on its MEB platform. A week later, and 37,000 customers have put €1000 [~1,176 USD] in advance already.
There are a couple of reasons for the apparent enthusiasm. First the range, going from an official 330 km [~200 mi] (45kWh battery) standard range over 420 km [~250 mi] (58kWh) medium to 550 km [~330 mi] (77kWh) for the long range battery. Practical range is estimated at 260, 330 and 430 km. [~156, ~200, and ~260 mi],
Second the price. The standard version comes in at €21,000 [~24,700 USD] in Germany (€30,000 [~35,300 USD] list price, €9,000 [~10,600 USD] subsidy). Medium range has a list price of €36,000 [~42,300 USD], for the maximum range the price is not yet known, but below €50,000 [~58,800 USD].
The car is rear-wheel driven by an 150kW motor, with top speed limited at 160 km/h [~100 mph]. Torque is 310Nm, delivering 0-60 kph [~37 mph] in 3.7 seconds (1st version; the standard version 9 seconds).
No talk about autonomous driving though: only lane assist and adaptive cruise control are provided.
Delivery of the car starts in September. There are no plans to bring the ID.3 to the US. Volkswagen said it is on track to deliver 70,000 ID.3's by year's end, and an additional 30,000 upcoming ID.4 SUVs along with that. Tesla, in contrast, sold more than 90,000 of its cars last quarter alone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @08:39PM (4 children)
A lot of households have two vehicles, so in those cases it would make sense to swap one vehicle for electric if it wasn't too expensive. Right now the electric options are just too costly, even with the US government incentives. But maybe in five years, prices will be close to their combustion engine counterparts - at that point, why not switch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:11PM
It's starting to dip into "affordable" for the middle class, toward the upper end, in some countries. So if the trend continues, yea it'll get there.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday July 29 2020, @04:39AM (2 children)
I've got two vehicles, a four-wheel drive that doesn't see a lot of use (some weekends), and a daily commuter. The daily commuter is a 4 litre V6. It's 25 years old, has air-con, heater and stereo, runs well, drives nice, costs about $400 a year in servicing and 8 years ago when I bought it, it cost me AUD $1500. It gets about 10km/l, and in normal times costs me about $30 a week in fuel.
Work out how long it would take to pay for a more "ecofriendly" car, saving (most of) that $30 and then tell me why I should spend upwards of $100,000 on a Tesla or $50,000 on a leaf? Don't forget to include interest.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:03PM (1 child)
I'm speaking strictly of buying new vehicles. It's always smarter to buy used, provided you know how to maintain the vehicle or have a skilled and trustworthy mechanic. I doubt we'll ever reach a point where buying a new electric vehicle is more cost effective than getting a used combustion engine vehicle in the same class. Maybe in ten years, if the batteries in the Nissan Leaf Plus prove reliable, a used Leaf would be cost competitive. But that's not guaranteed, because you might be able to get a ten year old Leaf for AUD $1500 and then discover a month later that you need an AUD $8000 battery pack replacement.
But before COVID-19 Americans were buying 17 million new vehicles a year. That's financially foolish, but it's commonplace. Actually, I'll come back to the foolish part later. But anyway, for someone already planning to buy new, at least in the US a new Chevy Bolt electric hatchback is within $10,000 of an equivalent options new small hatchback - or at least it is right now, GM is currently offering a $8,000 discount on the Bolt official list price. Once you factor in those fuel and maintenance differences over the life of the vehicle, the cost gap drops to below $5,000. But yes, if you really want to save money or flat out can't afford a new car, a used hatchback is the smart buy.
The excuse my wife and I used for buying new for our past vehicles, despite the financial foolishness, is crash safety and crash avoidance technology. The US government crash tests had the level of difficulty increased in 2011. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety added new safety tests in 2009, 2012, and 2017 and is increasing the difficulty of its side impact test for 2020 (but no vehicles have been tested with the more difficult side impact test yet). If my wife and I were childless, I wouldn't care if we rode in tiny cars or on motorcycles all of the time. But once we had kids, I was terrified that we would lose a family member to a crash in a minivan from, say, 2000 when they would have survived if we bought a highly safety-rated minivan from 2008. I knew a few people that were killed in crashes in the 1980s and 1990s that might have survived if their vehicle had been built like an equivalent from 2010 or 2015. Conversely I had a friend in a high speed collision with a 2014 economy car that destroyed the car and left her without a scratch.
However, the statistics on vehicle occupant injury rates are pretty clear - there is no replacement for mass. An older, larger vehicle with inferior crash engineering will still be safer than a newer, smaller one with superior crash engineering in almost any form of crash except for a rollover. I have a 2017 minivan for our brood and it has top crash ratings and all of the safety doodads available on the market at that time - but in terms of finances and safety I might have been better off getting a 2010 monster SUV like a Chevy Suburban or Ford Expedition, just for the extra 1500 pounds.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday July 30 2020, @08:18AM
I looked at getting a small second-hand car at the time. To get a similar condition / accessories / expected lifetime I was looking at close to $10,000 with higher service costs and less utility.
I did the math and said $8500 buys a hell of a lot of petrol.
Also, regarding safety, it has driver and passenger airbags, and ABS.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.