VW To Be The Biggest Electric Car Maker...

Methinks you are all being a little too harsh to VW

And this is coming from someone who is staunchly against diesels (at least as an alternative to hybrids).

However, let's keep an open mind. I invite all of you to take a look at the link in my above post.
Then, tell me if any carmaker -anywhere- has come up with ANYTHING even close to the XL1.

The answer is NO.
This is a true-to-life concept car you can actually buy.
Carbon-fiber, Lamborghini doors..........and it looks like it came straight out of 'Blade Runer' or 'Minority Report'.

311 mpg makes the Prius look like a gas guzzler.

Emissions and price-per-mile would likely be less than just about every EV (grid average) on the market, even without plugging it in.

Sure the price may be a bit high, but if these design themes make into the next generation of VW's, they will be a formidable competitor in the green-car segment, especially with heavy highway drivers.

 

As a study in efficiency it is very cool and I hope they learned a lot from it they can use in the rest of their fleet.

With a total planned production of 250 cars, a price tag of $146k, availability only in Europe and a 2 seater I don't think it is very practical.

 

It would seem that "VW" has a way of using the retail market to finish production of it's offerings, rather like Microsoft releasing operating systems(win95) unfinished to the retail public, and fixing the "bugs" as they appear.
Just thinking of the complaints for the last few years in any discussion concerning "VW" I'm not really planing on a "VW" beta
If they manage to buy Toyota, I could see them becoming the largest electric production ensemble, but, well, if pigs could fly.

 

Any other carmaker would not launch XL1, but make a practical car with some of this concept tech.

311 MPG is with a plug.
Prius PHV, under 15miles range, can match that. And 5 on-board capable...

If you divide emissions by 2 (full seat occupancy), like emission-per-mile-passenger, will be good, but not as good as a 4 or 5 seat family trip in a Prius.

And price per mile? Try to divide price tag by the miles you'll drive...

 

looks like they copied the original insight to me.

 

To a point, all companies do this at some level, simply because they need to react to the market. Look at the dramatic change from the Prius gen 1 to gen 2.

Yes, the XL1 is more of a proof of concept. Very similar to zero energy homes in the US right now. It is really cool to see, and hopefully what the manufacturer learns from actually building it can also be used in more reasonably priced products

As for getting a quick step up on EV tech, Toyota would not be my first choice. For hybrid tech, or even H2 tech sure. The way Toyota has been putting down EVs lately though would not make it a canidate for getting EV tech by buying the company.

 

Tesla is 10% owned by Toyota, and it batteries come from Panasonic EV...which are 100% Toyota.

 

You are spot on... When Fairfax Media in Australia went on to quoting from various and angry VDub owners about how they are ignoring the issues with the DSGs despite massive recalls overseas, VDub decisively cut off all advertising at Fairfax. That's when Fairfax turned up the heat and started publishing the bad news on the front page. VDub is now considered a toxic brand in Australia, and that reputational damge will take years to repair! VDub electric? Naa, thanks mate. I would have better chance with a china-made EV!

 

That's funny! Unfortunately you are spot on again! My lady friend was gagged from being talking to the media when they swapped her Golf with a new one after 2 years of fighting with random engine shutdown, electrical gremlins and other strange behaviour! With her "new" Golf now for 3 years and 50,000km later, 3 DSGs changed. Ops, I am not suppose to tell you all that~!!!

 

OK.
They have the hard part out of the way....they drew one on paper.
Now let's see the production model.

BTW...I respect the fact that my tastes in automotive design aren't going to be the same as everybody else's but if THAT is what the production model looks like??!!

Uh....
300-mpg isn't enough to justify driving something that looks like that!

 

That is the production model. They have built about 50 and plan on another 200.
It is basically a small 'proof of concept' release. Kind of like the Roadster was for Tesla.

Too funny. If you replace 300mpg with 50mpg that is exactly what I have heard, and still hear, from many people about the Prius.

 

Well if they're actually going to be doing EV's some day - then I suppose they're gona have all their electrical issues straightened out pretty soon.

 

Where did you get that 10% figure, it is extemely high. If Toyota actually did own 10% the most profitable thing on its 2013 bottom line would be tesla stock appreciation.

Toyota should have made about 10x on their investment of $50M in tesla, and that would be about 2.4Million shares out of 120Million or 2%. A huge profit on the stock, but lower than Daimler that got in pre-ipo and bought more. Unless toyota has been buying more post investment.

 

Now you sound like a Prius driver...
For a company the size of VW, hand building a few prototypes is the same as a napkin drawing. I'll let the eco-chic defend the Tesla Roadster against the unfair comparison with the VeeDub.

Let me see the production model.
Let me see if it will hold out as well in the real world as their TDIs (which I test drove but refuse to own due to reliability issues...)

True enough. As I said, automotive styling is subjective.
I can at least say that the Prius G3 looks like a PRIUS...for better or worse.

The VW above looks like the unfortunate result of a pimped out Insight copulating with a Citroen on Disney's Tron set.

It had BETTER get 300MPG and come with a 1,000,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.

 

lol the proof of concept is the production model. Its a plaything for feedback. People will garage them, and play on certain meet ups.

Its not a napkin drawing, lots of R&D in carbon fiber, aerodynamics, squeezing the last drop of diesel efficiency out of a vehicle. Does it work? It would in a dystopian universe where oil was $100/gallon. In today's world the other playing, the bmw i8, is a better demonstration. Its the same concept, but 2+2 instead of 2, and performance billed on equal footing as efficiency. That i8, if prices come down for carbon fiber and batteries may be part of the future. Its lower priced and handicapped version in the i3. That is the trickle down of the tech, built for the regulations and the tax breaks. The i8 should be compared to the M3, which gets 16 mpg combined. The i8 substitutes a large battery, motors, and turbo 3cyclinder for the v8, and could get better cs fuel economy than the prius, along with a serviceable aer range, but M3 acceleration and even better handling.

It is a unique looking car, it won't come with a long waranty. If you worry about such things you are not a car collector. In 20 years if vw is king of the phev world, the price should go up a lot for those garaged models. If its an also ran (as I expect) those collectors will still have a unique car to say when they get caught in their 14mpg exotic, my other car gets more than 100km/liter.

 

The 331 mpg is for imperial gallons. In U.S. gallons it is 261 mpg. The 2011 Chevy Volt gets 196 mpg (US) on the same NEDC test....

If you ignore the plugin battery and just look at the Diesel engine it apparently gets a little over 100 mpg (US). Diesel has 15% more carbon than gasoline so a Prius burning gas probably emits 1.5 - 2.0 times the CO2 of the XL1 rather than the 6x you might expect if it really got 311 mpg. Of course, that's still excellent.

 

Tesla Motors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Toyota owns 10%, Daimler 4%)