Author: Green Car Online News

VW is planning to build 50 million electric vehicles

Follow Bengt

Add to circle

Herbert Diess
Volkswagen already had ambitious goals to ramp up electric-vehicle production to a rate of up to three million EVs annually by 2025, and potentially hit 10 million vehicles around 2027 if all goes right. But its plans look even more bullish on electric cars, considering the number of vehicles it's now supposedly signed up to build over a longer stretch of years: 50 million.

Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess, speaking to Automotive News, in an interview from October 31 but published yesterday, said that the company has already sourced the batteries for 50 million electric cars to be built on the modular electric (MEB) platform alone—not counting additional premium-brand vehicles that will be built on other platforms.

DON’T MISS: Here's the battery pack behind VW's global electric-vehicle push

Although it’s not entirely clear what Diess means by “sourced,” the statement implies that VW has made a significant, long-term commitment to some combination of battery-tech companies, cell suppliers, and raw-materials sources.

VW Battery Packs

To put it into perspective, the entire Volkswagen Group sold 10.7 million vehicles—mostly gasoline, of course—in 2017. Over many model years and across its brands the company has sold about 50 million vehicles on its mainstream, modular MQB platform.
There’s one frustrating piece Diess didn’t place on this—the timeline. Volkswagen officials have confirmed that the MEB platform could be produced into the next decade—but it’s likely that in the early 2030s it would be replaced by a second-generation platform.

CHECK OUT: Will Volkswagen's electric Microbus be made in the USA?

By 2025 Volkswagen aims to have 50 distinct battery electric vehicles, and for 25 percent of all VW Group vehicles to be powered solely by electricity. By 2030 it plans to have at least one electric version of every one of the group’s more than 300 models.

Building 50 million vehicles will take a lot of dedicated assembly space. The company is in the process of choosing 16 global hubs for that. The first of those will be in Zwickau, Germany, where next year VW plans to begin transitioning the plant to all-electric vehicles on the MEB platform. The plant will go all electric by 2021.

VW MEB platform

Diess cast some question on likelihood of using the company’s Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant for electric-vehicle assembly. While a board member Thomas Ulbrich suggested some weeks ago that it was the preferred spot for North America, Diess said that the plant is too small and it’s considering various options.

READ MORE: Volkswagen details the foundation for 10 million electric vehicles

The VW chief executive also said that, for the foreseeable future, the battery pack will be more expensive than an internal-combustion powertrain—so there’s an incentive to lower those costs sooner with higher production volumes.

In Tesla’s third-quarter conference call last month, chief executive officer Elon Musk called the global demand for Model 3 “anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million cars a year.” Even if Tesla could make about that many Model Y crossovers, or increase production by lowering prices, Volkswagen could soon pass the California electric-car maker.

The first wave of 10 million electric vehicles, by the way, doesn’t quite reach the number (11 million) of diesel vehicles that it’s admitted to rigging for more favorable emissions-test results. Although it's too early to tell, VW could end up outdoing itself—in a good way.

Tesla bumps price of Autopilot post-delivery

Tesla Model 3 dashboard in Autopilot testing with IIHS [CREDIT: IIHS]
After removing its former Full Self-Driving Mode feature, Tesla is doubling down on selling Enhanced Autopilot.

In a new software rollout, the company has temporarily enabled Enhanced Autopilot on all the cars that have the hardware to run it in a 14-day free trial that chief executive officer Elon Musk announced in April at the company's annual shareholders meeting. The free trials started rolling out in August.

Starting on Friday, users who got the 14-day free trial were offered a “reduced price” of $5,500 on the cars' center display screens.

READ THIS: Consumer Reports tests Tesla's Navigate on Autopilot

Owners who don't take Tesla up on the offer face a new, increased price of $7,000 to turn on the system later: Users have until a week after their trial expires to sign up for Autopilot before the price goes up.

Last Friday, Tesla's website also started showing the price change for after-purchase activation of Enhanced Autopilot to $7,000.

The previous price to activate Autopilot for buyers who didn't purchase it up front was $6,000. The regular price for customers who order it with their cars is $5,000.

2017 Tesla Model S testing at Consumer Reports

It's a ploy that smacks of late-night QVC ads on TV and Presidents' Day sales at car dealerships. Act now!

The company previously used the same tactic with its Full-Self Driving Mode option, which has never been fully developed. Now that that option has been excised and rolled into Enhanced Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot has taken on the mantel of Tesla's automated self-driving system.

DON'T MISS: Tesla removes Full Self Driving option from website for all models

The most recent customers to get the free Autopilot trial also got Tesla's latest self-driving feature, Navigate on Autopilot, which will allow the car to merge into traffic from an on-ramp, take interchanges and exit off-ramps automatically using directions from the navigation system, as long as a destination is set. Musk originally referred to this as “on-ramp to off-ramp” self-driving capability.

Without Autopilot, all Tesla models come standard with automatic emergency braking, which will apply the brakes fully if the car encounters an obstacle, to stop if the car isn't traveling too fast or at least slow down significantly if it is.

CHECK OUT: Tesla raises price of full self-driving option–if you wait for it to work before buying

Enhanced Autopilot adds active lane control and adaptive cruise control which will keep pace with a leading car even if that car is driving slower than the speed limit. Now it also includes Navigate on Autopilot, Autopark, and Summon, which will allow drivers to control the car remotely at low speeds in parking lots.

Early tests of Navigate on Autopilot, as well as experiences of some drivers who have had accidents relying on earlier versions of Enhanced Autopilot to drive the car, show that the system is not fully self-driving, but Musk has said that it will improve as Teslas log more miles driving with the system.

The new Autopilot system is available on all three Tesla models.

VW, Mercedes-Benz agree to fix diesels in Germany

Mercedes-Benz GLS350d spotted testing near Denver
Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz have each agreed to spend up to $3,430 to update each of the older diesel cars they sold in Germany with new emissions systems that comply with regulations, Reuters reported Thursday.

The German agreement mirrors one in the U.S. in which Volkswagen paid owners between $5,000 and $10,000 in addition to the cost of repairing or buying back their cars. (The company is still in the process of returning the repaired older diesels back to the market in the U.S.)

A similar U.S. claim against Mercedes has been filed, dismissed, and refiled, but has not yet been adjudicated.

DON'T MISS: Mercedes-Benz gets its own diesel emission cheating questions now

Like the American Volkswagen settlement, the awards are designed to compensate diesel owners for added depreciation of their cars and give them money toward a down payment on a cleaner replacement car.

In Europe, the emissions issue has taken on more urgency because some cities have banned driving older diesel cars in city limits. Those include Frankfurt, Cologne, and Bonn, the latter two of which were required to institute such bans by next April according to a court order that came on Thursday.

READ THIS: Why Did Volkswagen Cheat On Diesel Emissions In Its TDI Cars? (2015)

“Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW will make sure their customers can remain mobile,” German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer told reporters at a conference in Germany on Thursday.

Scheuer has been pushing German automakers to spend more to retrofit older diesels to keep them on the road. Mercedes-Benz and VW will pay for the cost of retrofitting the cars, although BMW has still refused to do so, Scheuer said.

Last month, German prosecutors fined Volkswagen's luxury brand Audi $927 million after finding documents and emails exchanged between the automaker, its Mercedes-Benz rivals, and Germany auto parts supplier Bosch that the prosecutors allege showed collusion among the automakers to cheat emissions regulations.

Base price of VW’s electric cars could be as low as $21,000

Follow Bengt

Add to circle

VW MEB platform
Volkswagen plans to price its new generation of upcoming fully electric vehicles lower than it had previously hinted—as low as 18,000 euros for Europe, or about $21,000 for an entry-level fully electric model that will launch there in late 2019.

The news, via Reuters, comes as Volkswagen aims to make rapid changes to its manufacturing facilities. One of those plants is its Zwickau factory, targeted for a $1.4 billion transformation from building about 300,000 combustion-engine models to the same number of fully electric vehicles in 2021.

DON’T MISS: Here's the battery pack behind VW's global electric-vehicle push

The first couple of VW's new, small electric cars—the small ID hatchback in 2019 and the ID Crozz crossover in 2020—may come from Zwickau in 2019 at a slower rate, but Bloomberg reports that VW is also now targeting a plant in Emden, Germany, to build the entry-level electric model at an eventual rate of up to 200,000 per year.

The entry model will be built on the automaker’s new MEB modular electric-car underpinnings, planned for as many as 10 million cars.

Volkswagen ID electric car concept, 2016 Paris auto show

That $21,000 base price, in Germany, would land in the vicinity of a base gasoline-powered Volkswagen Golf, but it would remain thousands more than a Polo, the vehicle that’s a size smaller sold in many overseas markets.

CHECK OUT: Will Volkswagen's electric Microbus be made in the USA?

Volkswagen plans to have its more affordable MEB-based model replace the e-Golf in the lineup. We’re especially curious to see how it’s presented, priced, and sold in the U.S. next to the greenest version of the next-generation Golf, a plug-in hybrid with a longer range than the current 16 miles of all-electric range offered by the Audi A3 e-tron, which is very closely related to the overseas-only Volkswagen GTE plug-in hybrid.

VW is aiming to localize its electric-car production. It has said that at least some, if not all, of its electric vehicles sold in the U.S. will be built in the U.S., and it’s giving Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it already assembled Passat sedans and Atlas SUVs, some consideration as one of 16 key global “e-locations” for electric-car assembly.

The battery pack in this smallest MEB model is expected to be 48 kilowatt-hours—possibly equating to an EPA driving range of 175 miles or more. According to the Bloomberg report, Volkswagen may be able to offset the high price of the battery pack with a total production time that’s potentially half of a Volkswagen Golf, due to reduced complexity.

READ MORE: VW may share electric-car platform with Ford

Volkswagen hasn’t yet made an official model name known for the entry I.D., or any other model in the I.D. family for that matter. One name that’s been mentioned for the lowest-priced model is Neo, although that name hasn’t been confirmed and could remain an internal designation.

A total of 50 battery-electric models are expected from all of the VW Group’s brands by 2030. But two other models are due sooner, in 2022. One of them is the electric revival of the Microbus, called the ID Buzz in concept form, and the other is a flagship all-electric sedan, as previewed by the ID Vizzion concept, that would be more of a direct rival to Tesla, showcasing a higher level of connectivity and cabin technology.

Volkswagen ID Vizzion Concept

Either of these two later vehicles could be the vehicle that showcases the augmented-reality technology that the automaker has allowed for in the MEB platform.

The pricing news closely aligns with what executives have previously said about pricing. In September, Thomas Ulbrich, the VW Group Board of Management member in charge of e-mobility, said that the electric vehicles will be priced at the level of a comparable diesel car.

The latest pricing announcement ups the ante for other automakers, targeting a price even below that, and closer to that of a gasoline car. It’s a business model that other automakers—including Tesla—may have to eventually match.

Battery entrepreneur releases new invention to reduce cobalt

Tour of Tesla battery gigafactory for invited owners, Reno, Nevada, July 2016
As other battery scientists are working to develop the solid-state lithium batteries of tomorrow, technology entrepreneur Kenan Sahin is working to make the batteries of today more affordable.

Sahin announced at a conference in Berlin this week that his company TIAX has invented a new battery compound that he calls GEMX that reduced the need for cobalt in the battery cathodes, according to a Bloomberg report.

Cobalt prices are one of the main concerns of electric car makers who are counting on mass production of batteries and their lithium ingredients to bring prices of electric cars down to the point that they can compete against conventional cars without subsidies.

CHECK OUT: Battery legend Goodenough not done yet: new solid-state chemistry introduced

While batteries require more lithium than cobalt, lithium supplies are stable and new sources are coming online.

Cobalt is mined only in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has been tied to child labor in the country. Cobalt prices have tripled since 2015.

READ THIS: Panasonic works to develop cobalt-free electric-car batteries

Sahin says his new material can reduce the amount of cobalt in battery cathodes from about 20 percent to as little as 4 percent, which could result in dramatic cost savings for electric cars.

The invention plays into the hands of major battery manufacturers as well as automakers. Panasonic, which supplies batteries for Teslas, has said it is committed to eliminating cobalt from its batteries “in the near future.”

DON'T MISS: Supplies may be less of a problem for lithium than financing, report

In 2016, Sahin provided a key cathode compound based on lithium nickel-oxide to German electronics giant BASF. It's unclear whether BASF is one of Sahin's new customers.

Sahin says his company already has one major automaker signed up to use the technology. “We’re hoping we will get this into the hands of the major producers,” Sahin told Bloomberg in a phone interview.

GoFundMe campaign aims to keep Faraday Future employees afloat

Faraday Future FF 91
When some companies fall on hard financial times, they turn to Wall St. to sell stock or to banks to get loans.

Faraday Future has tried all of that and is trying to raise another $500 million in cash or debt to continue developing its $300,000 electric luxury car.

In the meantime, its employees have turned to Go Fund Me to raise $50,000 to keep their families afloat until the company can find more financing or the workers can find new jobs.

READ MORE: GM EV1 exec leaves Faraday Future (Updated)

After a funding dispute with its latest investor from Hong Kong, Faraday furloughed all the manufacturing employees at its factory in Hanford, California, who had been with the company for less than six months. Since the funding to produce the car was just procured in June, that includes most manufacturing employees.

Other employees, including managers, are on a reduced salary while the company seeks new funding.

DON'T MISS: Does Faraday have a Future? Latest financing disrupted—again

An arbitrator in Hong Kong ruled last month that Faraday Future may seek new funding from sources other than Evergrande Health, its Hong Kong benefactor. Evergrande agreed in June to invest $2 billion in Faraday Future, including an initial $800 million investment to get the company through its first six months and get manufacturing up and running. The company ran through the first $800 million in four months with only a few prototypes produced.

The arbitrator did not require Evergrande to release any more money to Faraday Future.

CHECK OUT: Faraday Future factory completes its first full car (Updated)

In the meantime, two key executives have left the company, Peter Savagian, former chief engineer for the GM EV1 and Faraday Future's key senior vice president, and the company's American co-founder, Nick Sampson. In his public letter of resignation, Sampson called the company “insolvent in both its financial and personnel assets.”

The Go Fund Me campaignwas launched by Hector Padilla, the manager of tooling and equipment for Faraday Future's Body-in-White production.

According to the Go Fund Me page, employees on furlough who have children, house and car payments, and no other backup plan will get priority for the funding, administered by Padilla and a co-worker. So far it has raised $16,000 toward its $50,000 goal.

BMW readies battery factory for wave of coming electric vehicles

Mini Electric concept, 2017 Frankfurt auto show
BMW announced last month it will significantly expand and overhaul a facility to produce batteries for electric cars at its factory in Dingolfing, Germany.

The factory currently builds several BMW sedans and coupes, including plug-in versions of the 5- and 7-Series.

The new battery assembly line in the factory will cover 65,000 square feet in the factory, according to a report in Autoevolution.

CHECK OUT: Supplier tests compact 100-kwh battery pack in BMW i3

With the expansion and new assembly line, the company will invest “mid-double-digit-million-euro amount” to overhaul the factory, BMW's electric powertrain head Roland Maurer told Autoevolution.

“With the launch of new models and growing demand for electrified vehicles, we will be stepping up production of electric components significantly over the next few months and years,” he said.

The new line is expected to supply batteries for the upcoming 2020 Mini Electric as well as the 2019 BMW iX3 SUV that will be built in China, the 2021 i4 based on the i Vision Dynamics concept, and the iNext luxury sedan.

The factory may assemble BMW's next generation of batteries with more compact packs and more efficient cooling, as a supplier to the company recently revealed. It will also build complete drive units for the cars, with motors and electronics.

READ MORE: BMW sets up end-to-end battery recycling in Europe

Further in the future, BMW has announced plans to build a supply chain to recycle used battery cells into new packs through a partnership with a new battery supplier in Sweden and a Belgian recycling firm.

Those batteries won't come online until supplier Northvolt completes its battery factory in Sweden and until a sufficient supply of used batteries from old BMW electric models becomes available.

Following the iX3 due out next year, the new Mini electric is expected to be the company's next electric model. It is expected to have 200 miles of range. Our sister site, MotorAuthority, published the most recent spy photos of the new Mini Electric hardtop in June.

Recall alert: Hyundai Ioniq in the hot seat

2019 Hyundai Ioniq Electric
Hyundai is recalling 10,575 Ioniq Hybrid and Plug-in Hybrid models from 2017 and 2018 to replace a wiring relay in the drive system.

The recall mirrors a similar problem announced last month with the Ioniq's platform-mate, the Kia Niro, which was also recalled.

Bad connections in a drive-system relay can cause the relay to overheat and lead to a fire, the automaker said in the recall notice. Drivers may see some early warning signs if the HEV warning light appears while driving, or the car won't start.

The recall affects Ioniqs built between November 16, 2016 and August 16, 2017

READ THIS: 2017-2018 Kia Niro hybrid recall concerns extra heat in the back seat

Like in the Niro, the relay is located under the back seat and can result in the rear seat getting warm or even catching fire. Parents placing children back there should be especially vigilant.

Hyundai says it will replace the relay free, and if technicians find any damage, the whole power relay assembly will be replaced.

Owners should expect to be notified by November 30th.

In the meantime, if backseat passengers say their seats are getting warm, it may not be just the optional bun warmers.