Volkswagen CEO slams stricter emissions regulations amid hopes for ‘diesel renaissance’

hello guys,
many of you are american and now america is a step forward eu countries in electric cars/infrastructure.
in europe,especially southern europe ,the lack of infrastructure is a big drawback for electric cars.
all the EU car maker made pressure on relative politics to do so.VW first…
they make so much money with ice cars and their power is huge especially in germany.
and germany is the big boss in EU.
politics and car industry had a very slow policy towards green cars.
but dieselgate and tesla reputation are breacking the rules…all western towns are so “smoggy” and noisy,.people want to change.
so VW ceo want just to save time, they are confident that tesla is too small and weak to disturb them.
maybe they are right but in next 10 years the car market will change.
german car makers establish their “superiority” especially thrugh excellent engines…BMW is a tipical example…
so they are risking all in a big challenge as their main power,the ICE will be dead soon.
so VW ceo is just trying to get time,they want some years more of “easy money”.
i have a brand new suv diesel bmw but i realized all the things are changing quicly also here now
it is my seventh bmw,maybe the last one.
this time i didnt bought it ,just leased so i could return it to bmw also if diesel car value will drop.
sorry for my bad english!!

Buoma sera e benvenuto amico fiorentino! La mia famiglia e di origine della tua bellissima città!!
Your English is quite good!

Did you know that there are already in excess of 450 T≡SLA Superchargers in Europe and many additional Destination chargers? Check out the Teslarati app for more details. I was like you a great BMW fan over the years but now that I have entered the T≡SLA family with a very low mileage Model S I think I will never go back to ICE cars.

Enjoy our forum and be sure we are on an exponential course in terms of EV adoption and enabling infrastructure!

Tante buone cose,
Michele

I agree that we’re rapidly approaching a tipping point (in fact, I think we already passed it) where EVs will inevitably become the norm. More importantly, the world is beginning to wake up to this – I’ve been convinced of the case for EVs since about 2012, but it’s becoming a mainstream opinion now. See this recent article on the BBC as an example. The article claims that EVs and even driverless technology will completely take over within ten years.

I think the article is stretching a bit; I agree with its basic premise, but I think the time frames will be a bit longer than they suggest. Nevertheless, the changes coming to the industry are massive, highly disruptive, and unstoppable. The established players need to prepare themselves, because if they’re not careful they’re going to be sunk by the changing tide.

Comments like this from the VW boss are unsurprising; he is clearly talking to a particular audience (ie politicians), and trying to avoid legislation forcing them to change. These comments make it sound like he doesn’t believe the changes are coming, but I give him more credit than that; he knows what he needs to do, and he also understands the enormity of it, so he’s playing for time. Delaying the inevitable makes it easier for his company to adapt.

There are two disruptive aspects discussed in the BBC article. Electrification and Driverless Cars. The article sees them both completely taking over in ten years.

I think it’s going to be longer than that, but maybe not by much.

Driverless Cars are going to be massively disruptive in more ways than one. Obviously they will trigger societal change, but from the perspective of the established car makers, the biggest danger to them from driverless tech is that it could trigger a massive decline in vehicle sales. Imagine if most people simply didn’t buy a car, and just called for a driverless taxi whenever they needed to go anywhere.

The new car market could rapidly shrink to 10% of its current size, or even less, and the cars that are sold will be bought in bulk and so will represent a much smaller profit margin for the manufacturers. Imagine nine out of ten vehicle factories around the world closing, and a number of the established brand names disappearing, and you get an idea of the kind of disruption that wide-spread self-driving technology will have.

Electric vehicles won’t have the same impact as self-driving cars in that respect; simply converting all car sales from ICE to electric won’t change the overall numbers. It will affect the distribution of sales though: manufacturers with a compelling EV product will displace sales from those who don’t have EVs or whose EVs are not as good.

The real horror story for the established vendors is these two disruptive technologies ramping up at the same time. Because in that scenario, the new EV players will eat into their market share at the same time as the overall size of the market is shrinking rapidly.That is the kind of scenario that has the potential to very rapidly bankrupt even some of the biggest companies in today’s auto industry, and that is what is frightening people like the VW CEO .

So how can the big auto companies survive this?

For some, it’s going to be really quite difficult. Companies that don’t have a compelling presence in either EV or self-driving industries will be the hardest hit. That includes the untouchable giants like Ford and Toyota (despite Toyota’s strong presence in hybrids, they haven’t really embraced EVs at all). And a lot of the smaller marques are going to be in big trouble. Companies like Alpha Romeo and Aston Martin.

On the other hand, those who have had the foresight to invest will probably survive. They might shrink, as the general market shrinks, but they’ll get out the other side as a strong player in the industry. I’m thinking of GM, with their purchase of Cruise and their Volt and Bolt vehicles, and Jaguar, VW and BMW, who have all put in substantial investments into EV technology.

They all need to keep on their toes though, because Tesla, Waymo, and other similar companies are poised to take an ever increasing bite out of a rapidly decreasing pie.

So when will it all start happening?

Well it’s started already. Look at the rapid rise in sales for Tesla. Look at the large number of new EVs that are now either in production or announced for production in the next couple of years. The tide is turning quickly toward EVs.

Driverless Cars on the other hand is a much harder industry to read. But there are four main players here at the moment: Cruise (backed by GM, and recently Honda), Waymo (owned by Google), Uber, and Tesla.

Out of the above, the ones that also have their own vehicle manufacturing capabilities will have a clear advantage once the technology is ready, because they can build it right into the cars rather than having to retro-fit it into someone else’s cars.

My bet is on all of them (possibly except Uber) getting their self-driving technology completed and on the road inside the next four years. There are others working on similar tech, but I don’t think anyone else will be anywhere close to ready with a competing product in that time frame. That’s when the real revolution will begin, and that’s what the rest of the industry needs to be prepared for.

Mr. Müller is incredibly naive if he thinks the public will once again be convinced that diesels are clean. They had a very bad rep decades ago, dirty and noisy and their vibrations could grind kidney stones. Then common rail diesels came along, and with them the sentiments slowly improved. Modern diesels, we were led to believe, were as clean if not cleaner than petrol cars, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And it is undeniable that diesel engines came with perks: we loved them for their low revs and loads of torque; even the vibrations and noise were brought down to manageable levels. With turbos they became very powerful in the high end too, and they could easily be tuned to way above factory specs. In large numbers, we switched from petrol to diesel and never looked back.

Then came dieselgate, and the illusions of diesel being the superior engine technology both in terms of performance and environmental friendliness were shattered. And I think it is permanent. We feel betrayed. No way will we ever believe that they’ll be able to make them clean enough even for current emission standards, let alone the much stricter standards of tomorrow. If they could, they would have done so already, instead of running these huge risks with their “innovative software solution”. And even if they do make them compliant without needing to resort to trickery, it won’t be enough any more. It would need to become orders of magnitude cleaner to overcome this “dirty feeling” that is now, once again, associated with everything diesel.

And while all this was going on, a new kid on the block arrived: the high end performance electric vehicle. And everyone who has driven one knows it: you have never experienced torque, quietness, agility, silence, and mindblowing performance like this before, no matter what you used to drive. Drive one for a few months, and you are completely alienated from the very concept of the internal combustion engine. Why can’t it start itself, what is “starting” anyway, why does it vibrate and make noise even when I am not moving? Why can’t it run at 2 revs per minute, why does it have to go up down up down up down up down up in revs, jerking me around in the process, when all I want to do is accelerate steadily to cruising speed? Why does it seem to take forever for something to happen when I slam down the accelerator?

More and more people will find out about this in the years to come. More and more people will talk about it, be taken on test drives by friends and family that have already “made the switch”, will notice how electric vehicle reviews slowly start dominating the world of automotive journalism. And amidst all this, there will be a large scale movement of people saying “Hey, I think diesels really deserve another chance!”? Highly unlikely.

Clearly that remark about loosing 100,000 jobs was aimed at the politicians to persuade them to lower their clean air targets. Muller appears to be out of touch with reality if he thinks there will be a diesel renaissance VW can compete with Tesla in the electric car market or die. No government legislation required. 7B Euros invested in new electrification would seem to be a very serious program to compete in the new world, so I don’t really understand why he feels compelled to talk up diesels, maybe just because they are not phased out yet. (anybody know how to create a Euro symbol with an American keyboard?)

Press long on the $ key, other currency symbols will show up … (at least if you are using a proper operating system).
From what I know is that Volkswagen has all (or a lot) of the diesel related patents. This means they earn a lot from it even without producing cars.
Also, a new high standard Diesel engine is promoted that emits a lot less soot and NOx according to new strict emission specs. This was costly and the company and shareholders expect and demand a high return of investment.
The problem is, that tests proving compliance are not real. The test doesn’t include ‘flooring the peadal’ or cold and hot circumstances, nor does it count a breakdown of the extreme complex thechnology to tame the ugly beast or an empty blue (from the smoke) adon tank. It also doesn’t include people using illegal adons or the regular emitting of filtered soot (what’s even the point of that?).
I think VW is a criminal organization, the CEO of Audi is in prison (for example) and diesel gate continues to rear its ugly (extremely filthy and deadly) head.
Diesel is similar to asbestos only a thousand times more deadly, tens of thousand people live a lot shorter live as a result of this pollution.

J.

@agdejager Thank you very much.
I know very well about the tesla supercharger develop.i also have some friends with model S but…at moment here they have serious problems of charging in many areas especially doing highway where real consumption is 2.5km /kw-
The big problem in italy and in many other countries isnt the supercharger net.
Tesla is doing an huge effort considering how small is the company.
The big problem is the huge delay of a general infrastructure and i suppose it’s not a case…european car makers are in big delay with their electric product and they dont want to make a gift to tesla…in italy the biggest power supplier is controlled by the gov.
they forecast to install 180 fast chargers in 2017 and they did ZERO.
now the new gov is less “friend” with ICE makers and gave them the green light
some towers are already installed but will need more than 1 year to get acceptable infrastructure.
those chargers works till 150kw.
i suppose end 2019 italy will be “electric friendly”.
pls consider also that the power supply industry is very excited about electric cars because it is a fantastic opportunity for them.
but in italy,france and mainly germany the car industry has a lot of power.
also in spain there are many ICE plants…
so we dont need so much imagination
anyway i repeat,
here the people is ready for a big change..within 1 year i hope this dream will be also realistic.
as i said…sorry for my bad english i dont want to use translators that maybe are worse than me 🙂

I have been watching news on cell manufacturing and right now there are only plans for around 500GW-h of cells outside of Tesla by 2022, four yeas from now, 15x more than now. This is enough for about 7 million EVs. These will go into cars for the 2023 model year. This will be spread around the world market of 80 million cars annually. This is just approaching the 10% threshold where serious disruption occurs. The auto makers see this and are throwing money at anyone even thinking of building cell plants. I just don’t see it happening much faster than this.

You’re still making the mistake of thinking new car sales will remain steady. Reread my second point. People will buy used or keep their current cars instead of buying new ones. Another possibility – new cars can have costs cut, but all that’ll do is destroy margin and undo the companies even faster.

hello guys,
many of you are american and now america is a step forward eu countries in electric cars/infrastructure.
in europe,especially southern europe ,the lack of infrastructure is a big drawback for electric cars.
all the EU car maker made pressure on relative politics to do so.VW first…
they make so much money with ice cars and their power is huge especially in germany.
and germany is the big boss in EU.
politics and car industry had a very slow policy towards green cars.
but dieselgate and tesla reputation are breacking the rules…all western towns are so “smoggy” and noisy,.people want to change.
so VW ceo want just to save time, they are confident that tesla is too small and weak to disturb them.
maybe they are right but in next 10 years the car market will change.
german car makers establish their “superiority” especially thrugh excellent engines…BMW is a tipical example…
so they are risking all in a big challenge as their main power,the ICE will be dead soon.
so VW ceo is just trying to get time,they want some years more of “easy money”.
i have a brand new suv diesel bmw but i realized all the things are changing quickly also here now
it is my seventh bmw,maybe the last one.
this time i didnt bought it ,just leased so i could return it to bmw also if diesel car value will drop.
sorry for my bad english!!

@stefano do you use smartphone apps like Chargemap, Wattfinder or Stromtankstellen? or the Tesla Supercharger/Destination Charger Network. You will see an ever growing network all the time. Also Tesla is still expanding. Tesla does that by monitoring their sales and usage of their network. Tesla Model 3 has a range of 300 – 500 km, depending on short range or longe range batteries. Besides that you can always charge at home even with 230 Volt AC. During the night it will give you enough power to drive the next day.

“Such an industry can crash faster than many believe. The transformation in speed and impact is difficult to manage,”

I don’t know that he has ever spoken truer words. I’ve been saying it for months now – these old auto companies are going to collapse quite quickly over the next few years. The time from when BMW collapses until Toyota collapses will probably be 2-3 years, with most other auto companies collapsing between the two of them. I don’t expect BMW to last past 2022 (and that’s being very generous to them.)

“Such an industry can crash faster than many believe. The transformation in speed and impact is difficult to manage,”

I don’t know that he has ever spoken truer words. I’ve been saying it for months now – these old auto companies are going to collapse quite quickly over the next few years. The time from when BMW collapses until Toyota collapses will probably be 2-3 years, with most other auto companies collapsing between the two of them. I don’t expect BMW to last past 2022 (and that’s being very generous to them.)

Agree we may be surprised at the speed of transformation, and not that you’ll see me defend any ICE manufacturer, particularly those who are slow to embrace the future or those hypocrites like VAG, yet, IMHO, BMW may not be the first to go & likely not this soon. I get that you’re probably thinking about the massive penetration T≡SLA is making in the mid- & upper luxury segment, particularly in NA (see recent Model ≡ sales). However, BMW is likely to continue to draw major profits from sales of their cars in EU, China & other international markets which should sustain them for a while longer. Key for them will be an acceleration of their range electrification. On top of their i3 and all PHEVs, the iX3 and later the i5 are on the horizon, but it’s too slow. They’re being threatened for sure yet I believe they have a stronger financial backbone than many…

“Such an industry can crash faster than many believe. The transformation in speed and impact is difficult to manage,”

I don’t know that he has ever spoken truer words. I’ve been saying it for months now – these old auto companies are going to collapse quite quickly over the next few years. The time from when BMW collapses until Toyota collapses will probably be 2-3 years, with most other auto companies collapsing between the two of them. I don’t expect BMW to last past 2022 (and that’s being very generous to them.)

I like your thinking in general but the time line is a little short in my estimate. I think lack of cell availability will keep ICE in play but declining for five years at least and then we will see the rapid collapse of FFV sales quickly followed by the companies that have not successfully adapted to BEV only. Basically I am saying that ALL car manufacturers have five years to get their heads in the game before it is too late. Truck manufacturers have maybe another two years after that.

Clearly that remark about loosing 100,000 jobs was aimed at the politicians to persuade them to lower their clean air targets. Muller appears to be out of touch with reality if he thinks there will be a diesel renaissance VW can compete with Tesla in the electric car market or die. No government legislation required. 7B Euros invested in new electrification would seem to be a very serious program to compete in the new world, so I don’t really understand why he feels compelled to talk up diesels, maybe just because they are not phased out yet. (anybody know how to create a Euro symbol with an American keyboard?)

It worked over and over again in the past.

I like your thinking in general but the time line is a little short in my estimate. I think lack of cell availability will keep ICE in play but declining for five years at least and then we will see the rapid collapse of FFV sales quickly followed by the companies that have not successfully adapted to BEV only. Basically I am saying that ALL car manufacturers have five years to get their heads in the game before it is too late. Truck manufacturers have maybe another two years after that.

I think there’s two factors you’re failing to consider:
1 – Sales don’t have to drop to 0 for the companies to go bankrupt. GM’s sales only fell by 10% when they declared bankruptcy. Many car companies are operating with huge overhead costs from masses of unionized workers. When sales fall, they can cut production, but then they don’t get as good a price on parts, plus payroll doesn’t go down. True, GM was run poorly, but any auto company will at least struggle with a 20% drop in sales, and I don’t think any could survive a 30% drop.

2 – All new cars are luxury purchases. If people don’t feel like they’re a real treat, they’ll just stick with whatever they already have, be more incentivized to repair it, or switch for another used car. New cars are by no means a necessity – you can’t say “whatever, customers will just keep buying them”. Once customers know something better exists, many will wait for it instead. Just like the half a million people did for a Model 3.

As for cell availability, I think this is a problem that goes away if you throw money at it. More cells don’t exist because other car manufacturers aren’t asking for a lot of them. If they put up the kinds of investments Tesla does, they could get the kinds of volumes that Tesla does.

@stefano salve!
The important thing is we’re on the right track! Keep the faith… 🙂

Thank you Michael!
I know tesla is doing a big job and we have some superchargers in tuscany too.
My questions was another…if we want an electric revolution we cannot do it just with tesla….charging stations open the door to car sales…but here in italy and generally in europe largest part of the media are just speacking about range ansiety…another example.the italian main energy supplier promised 2 years ago to install in 2017 180 fast charging stations,150kw max output….they did ZERO.
the first one is open early this year and program is raising slowly.
For sure they received big big pressures because they have the money and the interest to do it…but they dont…i suppose they are waiting the first FCA electric cars:-)

EVs will truly dominate when they have a 200 mile range at the price of 10.000 dollars. And with battery prices at 100,- per kWh we are still not there yet. I’m confident we’ll get there within 10 years, but I don’t expect ICE’S to really go before then. I’m happy I can afford a second hand Model S85 2013 and absolutely love that car! But I could’ve bought a very luxurious brand new BMW 520D for that money too.

The newest Gen6 diesels have blue(something) additive that apparently make them cleaner than before, and diesels always have typically produced less Co2 per mile than petrol/gasoline. The blue additive is to prevent soot/smog… So I understand the reasoning for diesel coming back.

@Ruben Laan
the tesla policy is clear,they begun from premium market and they are moving on the mass market but slowly.
the costs are going down just making big volume.
so…roadster…modelS…modelX…model3 high level versions and half next year model 3 cheaper versions.
is easier to sell a model X at 140000usd than a small city car at 60000usd
so city cars with serious battery packs are not possible at moment,will arrive later.
is better to attract premium clients than try the mass market at moment.
DIESEL…
i bougth 10 months ago the first new X3Msport arrived in my town, 3.0D very very fast and efficent.
it is euro 6last vesrion with AD blue…
i’m very happy about this car but 90% will be my last diesel.
the euro 6C is too complicate and expensive.just to give you an idea also with cold engine the cooling fan remain on largest time i switch off the engine..it is because they put a new catalizer pratically inside the engine.
all is becoming very complicate and for sure those cars cannot keep low emissions for long time.
i see all diesel cars after a few years become big smokers.
many companies are abandoning this technology and the future euro 7 willl be a mess for diesel.
if i look to the future i would like to get clean and quieter cities so we need electric cars.
we cannot more invest in old technologies.
from november in all the north of italy the local govs found an agreement to stop all diesel cars euro0-1-2-3
and petrol cars euro 0-1-2
next year diesel euro4 will be on the aim too…within 7/10 years all diesels will be banned from the big cities.
so a diesel euro 6C-D can be the right choice for today but could be a mess for your pocket tomorrow.
this time i got the car with a leasing at prefixed price return,i dont want to risk to buy a car now with no value tomorrow.
i really believe that a big change is arriving in EU too and we need to ride the bull or the bull will smash us………

I have been watching news on cell manufacturing and right now there are only plans for around 500GW-h of cells outside of Tesla by 2022, four yeas from now, 15x more than now. This is enough for about 7 million EVs. These will go into cars for the 2023 model year. This will be spread around the world market of 80 million cars annually. This is just approaching the 10% threshold where serious disruption occurs. The auto makers see this and are throwing money at anyone even thinking of building cell plants. I just don’t see it happening much faster than this.

i dont think EV can get the mass market soon …but i think tesla can get premium market soon,
“premium” customers are able to invest some more money in innovation if they believe it,
so the “disruptive” first action can arrive on bmw/audi/mb/cadillac/infiniti and so on…maybe volvo and jaguar are a bit forward or maybe they really believe in the big change.
pls consider that audi/bmw/mb are the biggest and richiest car company of the world.they are premium market leader and they dont like to play the new game.
in the new game they can loose it so they prefer to continue to play the old one till will be possible.
they already suffer tesla in USA and some small markets.
when model 3 will arrive in EU we could see a new step…
but the biggest one will be the model Y.
the medium suv market is the gold mine now….if tesla arrive there with a nice car …it could be a big bang.

You’re still making the mistake of thinking new car sales will remain steady. Reread my second point. People will buy used or keep their current cars instead of buying new ones. Another possibility – new cars can have costs cut, but all that’ll do is destroy margin and undo the companies even faster.

The real killer for new car sales could be self-driving cars.

All the main players developing self-driving tech are intending for it to become a taxi service rather than a vehicle you own. Tesla’s model is a bit different from the others, but still ultimately has the same effect, in that once there exists and automated taxi service that is quick, cheap, and door-to-door, the demand for new cars could drop dramatically, and a lot more quickly than anyone really realises.

I believe that Tesla is well-placed to survive and thrive in that environment. But many other well-known brands are not.

Also many countries are preparing to a complete ICEcar selling stop from 2025 -2030 for example Denmark and the Netherlands too? Also even in Germany, yes you read this right, more and more dieselbans within big cities are coming, maybe on gas too! So in the end ICEcars are nihilated and their carmakers too if they are not moving faster too BEV.

Although I’d love the world to switch to EV yesterday I’m not confident it will happen so soon. A car is an expensive item in any household and as long as EVs are around 50k (euros or dollars) they are not gonna win the race. We see a slow adoption here in Europe with less than 1% EVs in total, we see numbers rising in the US and China as well.

China already has 300.000 EBusses and taxis are rapidly going Electric as well. But China and India are two huge economies with a growing middle income group who get access to more money and thus luxury items like a car. But the incomes are not able to pay for a 50.000 dollar car. We will see hundreds of thousands ICEs in these continents in the next 10-20 years.

EVs will truly dominate when they have a 200 mile range at the price of 10.000 dollars. And with battery prices at 100,- per kWh we are still not there yet. I’m confident we’ll get there within 10 years, but I don’t expect ICE’S to really go before then. I’m happy I can afford a second hand Model S85 2013 and absolutely love that car! But I could’ve bought a very luxurious brand new BMW 520D for that money too.

The newest Gen6 diesels have blue(something) additive that apparently make them cleaner than before, and diesels always have typically produced less Co2 per mile than petrol/gasoline. The blue additive is to prevent soot/smog… So I understand the reasoning for diesel coming back.

However in my opinion anything that needs to burn something other than Hydrogen to move is by definition not good for our future.

If you ever get to visit the Bell museum in Nova Scotia, Canada you’ll see that over 100 years ago Mr. Bell (he stumbled on a thing called the telephone) already warned for global warming because of Co2. It took the people 100 years to wake up…

I believe Tesla is much closer than you think to a battery prices at 100,- per kWh target, if I remember correctly by the end of this year 2018 with the new Panasonic battery cell lines at the Nevada Gigafactory coming online they will have achieved this price point of $100 (currently less than $120). I also agree that a 10K price point for a small car will be difficult to achieve right now or near future because of the investment required by Tesla. However once China and Europe have a Gigafactory (bear in mind it does not need to be fully built, current Gigafactory only at 30%) the volumes in battery and car production should be such that the prices should come way down ( perhaps 2025). Certainly 10K-15K cars would mean a mass adoption as people will want EV cars in the same way people wanted color TVs in the 70s, the difference then was night and day in terms of product. I believe the same will happen with ICE cars to EV car sales, people will make the jump and accept them, especially if driving automation has taken off where people only part own a car. Also used EV car market will push more people to adopt in the next few years as more and more people buy EV cars and see them on the road.

Although I’d love the world to switch to EV yesterday I’m not confident it will happen so soon. A car is an expensive item in any household and as long as EVs are around 50k (euros or dollars) they are not gonna win the race. We see a slow adoption here in Europe with less than 1% EVs in total, we see numbers rising in the US and China as well.

China already has 300.000 EBusses and taxis are rapidly going Electric as well. But China and India are two huge economies with a growing middle income group who get access to more money and thus luxury items like a car. But the incomes are not able to pay for a 50.000 dollar car. We will see hundreds of thousands ICEs in these continents in the next 10-20 years.

EVs will truly dominate when they have a 200 mile range at the price of 10.000 dollars. And with battery prices at 100,- per kWh we are still not there yet. I’m confident we’ll get there within 10 years, but I don’t expect ICE’S to really go before then. I’m happy I can afford a second hand Model S85 2013 and absolutely love that car! But I could’ve bought a very luxurious brand new BMW 520D for that money too.

The newest Gen6 diesels have blue(something) additive that apparently make them cleaner than before, and diesels always have typically produced less Co2 per mile than petrol/gasoline. The blue additive is to prevent soot/smog… So I understand the reasoning for diesel coming back.

However in my opinion anything that needs to burn something other than Hydrogen to move is by definition not good for our future.

If you ever get to visit the Bell museum in Nova Scotia, Canada you’ll see that over 100 years ago Mr. Bell (he stumbled on a thing called the telephone) already warned for global warming because of Co2. It took the people 100 years to wake up…

Good discussion, guys. Clearly, the rate of EV adoption in Europe may look like it is lagging behind that of other world areas yet I am convinced this is about to change.

Yes, this future will entail more than T≡SLA winning, and that is fine, the potential market demand for EVs is not likely to be satisfied by our dear CA-based carmaker only. However be prepared to see significant T≡SLA inroads into Europe with Model ≡ as of 2019…

Agree penetration will grow exponentially with a balance between minimal range & purchase price. Since I expect Model ≡ to cost at least €40k as base model, it will sell well, in large numbers (look how many 3-Series BMW, Mercedes C and A4s are sold per year in Europe!) yet not in millions.

@Ruben Laan – welcome by the way! – I think your set level for success of $10k is super ambitious; IMHO, I think aesthetically pleasing EVs, with 200+ miles actual range, selling for €20-25k, would go in huge numbers. I just met a lady last night, who was looking at Red Dragon (my MCR S85) in admiration, who had picked up a brand new Nissan Leaf, claiming she could get that kind of a range (am skeptical, for the record…)… Anyways, we may not be that far away… expect big numbers by the middle of the next decade… with T≡SLA still riding the wave…

Clearly that remark about loosing 100,000 jobs was aimed at the politicians to persuade them to lower their clean air targets. Muller appears to be out of touch with reality if he thinks there will be a diesel renaissance VW can compete with Tesla in the electric car market or die. No government legislation required. 7B Euros invested in new electrification would seem to be a very serious program to compete in the new world, so I don’t really understand why he feels compelled to talk up diesels, maybe just because they are not phased out yet. (anybody know how to create a Euro symbol with an American keyboard?)

Clearly that remark about loosing 100,000 jobs was aimed at the politicians to persuade them to lower their clean air targets. Muller appears to be out of touch with reality if he thinks there will be a diesel renaissance VW can compete with Tesla in the electric car market or die. No government legislation required. 7B Euros invested in new electrification would seem to be a very serious program to compete in the new world, so I don’t really understand why he feels compelled to talk up diesels, maybe just because they are not phased out yet. (anybody know how to create a Euro symbol with an American keyboard?)

I think the answer is simple: profits. VW has all the infrastructure needed to produce tons more of diesel cars and customers do not expect major innovations on their ICE cars, so producing new lines of diesel cars is cheap. BEVs, on the other hand, require a lot of innovation; it’s not enough to copy Tesla (as Porsche is more or less doing with its Taycan) — Tesla and others are continuing to innovate. VW may have committed a fair amount of money (although, except for its claimed battery contracts, it’s basically laughable, a lot less than the fines it had to pay for Dieselgate), but it’s a long way from being ready to compete, so it’s not going to make much money on BEVs for quite a few years.

(anybody know how to create a Euro symbol with an American keyboard?)[/QUOTE]Use [ALT]+0128, It is in the Extended ASCII code table. You can do any symbol this way ( https://www.ascii-code.com/ )

/Daniel

I think there’s two factors you’re failing to consider:
1 – Sales don’t have to drop to 0 for the companies to go bankrupt. GM’s sales only fell by 10% when they declared bankruptcy. Many car companies are operating with huge overhead costs from masses of unionized workers. When sales fall, they can cut production, but then they don’t get as good a price on parts, plus payroll doesn’t go down. True, GM was run poorly, but any auto company will at least struggle with a 20% drop in sales, and I don’t think any could survive a 30% drop.

2 – All new cars are luxury purchases. If people don’t feel like they’re a real treat, they’ll just stick with whatever they already have, be more incentivized to repair it, or switch for another used car. New cars are by no means a necessity – you can’t say “whatever, customers will just keep buying them”. Once customers know something better exists, many will wait for it instead. Just like the half a million people did for a Model 3.

As for cell availability, I think this is a problem that goes away if you throw money at it. More cells don’t exist because other car manufacturers aren’t asking for a lot of them. If they put up the kinds of investments Tesla does, they could get the kinds of volumes that Tesla does.

I have been watching news on cell manufacturing and right now there are only plans for around 500GW-h of cells outside of Tesla by 2022, four yeas from now, 15x more than now. This is enough for about 7 million EVs. These will go into cars for the 2023 model year. This will be spread around the world market of 80 million cars annually. This is just approaching the 10% threshold where serious disruption occurs. The auto makers see this and are throwing money at anyone even thinking of building cell plants. I just don’t see it happening much faster than this.