More ID.3 details
Discussion
granada203028 said:
Trouble is all the cost is in the battery, HUD, ambient lighting, fancy interiors is just bundled to try and justify the price but costs relatively little.
LiIon cells are running at about $130/kwh at the moment, so a 60kwh battery pack will contain roughly £6000 worth of cells at current market prices. It's a fair chunk, certainly, and you need to add a bit to that to get the total cost of the pack, but we're rather past the time when manufacturers can claim "the whole cost of an EV" is the batteries. Realistically I think the drivetrain cost of a mid-range ID3 (excluding R&D costs) will break down roughly as follows:Cells: £6k
All battery cooling hardware: £500
Inverter/power controller: £500
Motor: £1000
Charger: £200
Various others (high-voltage cables, etc): £500
That gives you a total drivetrain cost of somewhere around the £9k mark to the manufacturer.
I don't know what the full drivetrain cost for a modern emissions compliant diesel engine with a DSG type gearbox is but I can't see it being less than £5k so that gives a difference in drivetrain cost of around £4k. Now knock the government grant off that and you get pretty much price parity to the customer as VW originally promised.
In the short term I think higher prices for EVs comes down to the R&D costs being spread over a smaller number of units, but the point of the ID3 was that it was supposed to change that. If prices end up higher than original promised, I suspect it'll be because VAG have downgraded their forecast of how many they can sell, either because they don't have the battery supply or because customer demand has disappeared. Or of course it could just be the fact that the cost to manufacture a car has never played much part in how much it's worth on the market.
Edited by kambites on Friday 31st July 06:42
kambites said:
In the short term I think higher prices for EVs comes down to the R&D costs being spread over a smaller number of units
I think you're missing 2 points. 1 is mass production, there's about 50 ice cars produced for each EV at the moment and scale reduces cost massively for all the components (which is why shared platforms are tempting)
2 is sales, what happens when you offer an EV version at comparable purchase price but have a supply of 1:50? How do you shift those ice cars that cost the consumer more to run, service, depreciate faster and are typically less safe?
RobDickinson said:
kambites said:
In the short term I think higher prices for EVs comes down to the R&D costs being spread over a smaller number of units
I think you're missing 2 points. 1 is mass production, there's about 50 ice cars produced for each EV at the moment and scale reduces cost massively for all the components (which is why shared platforms are tempting)
2 is sales, what happens when you offer an EV version at comparable purchase price but have a supply of 1:50? How do you shift those ice cars that cost the consumer more to run, service, depreciate faster and are typically less safe?
Either they can't source enough batteries to match demand at price parity or they wouldn't be able to sell enough to cover their fixed costs. Or both, the two are obviously inter-twined. As for the idea that they're intentionally hobbling their EVs to keep up ICE sales... well fans of capitalism will tell you that competition is supposed to solve that one.
Edited by kambites on Friday 31st July 06:49
Just seen one of the German reviewers doing an English-language review. Claims 125kW charging, and makes no differentiation between the battery sizes for this.
And also, says "everything is where you expect" but the gear selector is a big knob coming off the dash next to the speedometer cluster!?
And also, says "everything is where you expect" but the gear selector is a big knob coming off the dash next to the speedometer cluster!?
Evanivitch said:
Just seen one of the German reviewers doing an English-language review. Claims 125kW charging, and makes no differentiation between the battery sizes for this.
And also, says "everything is where you expect" but the gear selector is a big knob coming off the dash next to the speedometer cluster!?
Well that is fair enough isn't it? Having a leaver of the floor is a throw back to vintage car days when that is where the mechanical gearbox was. Once the control could be decoupled mechanically then make sense to put it up on the dash with everything else. US cars had column change (selection) for automatics.And also, says "everything is where you expect" but the gear selector is a big knob coming off the dash next to the speedometer cluster!?
granada203028 said:
Well that is fair enough isn't it? Having a leaver of the floor is a throw back to vintage car days when that is where the mechanical gearbox was. Once the control could be decoupled mechanically then make sense to put it up on the dash with everything else. US cars had column change (selection) for automatics.
True, but it's also a useful place to rest my hand...ash73 said:
Shame they felt the need to fill the space with cup holders, otherwise you could slide your legs across if you need to get out the other side.
I think I've needed to do that once in 25 years of driving, a broken drivers door handle on an e46 330i due to freezing weather about 20 years ago. Happened on a petrol station forecourt I seem to recall.Hard work for a 6.4" bloke in a RWD car with full centre tunnel and manual gearbox I can tell you..
Evanivitch said:
SWoll said:
Evanivitch said:
True, but it's also a useful place to rest my hand...
You rest your hand behind the steering wheel next to the instrument binnacle? How close to you sit to the steering wheel man?Car Pervert / Jonny Smith review here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yntwHNCDBo&fe...
Comments:
'Jonny only had 2 hours to film the car, so this is more of a Vlog, but once he flew home from Wolfsburg to digest his thoughts, he wrote the following: 'The exterior is pleasant, with its side profile being a grower. The space inside is phenomenal, given its dimensions. The layout of the interior is pleasing, however there are more hard plastic surfaces than the equivalent Golfs. An e-Golf probably feels more premium inside. VW's new infotainment system (which is shared with the new mk8 Golf) is a disappointment. It is so damn confusing to do the simple functions, such as switching on AC, which comes as a result of wanting to reduce physical switches and rely more on touch screens and voice commands. That's a big mistake to me.
'The ID.3 drives beautifully and has a definite Golf DNA feeling to it. I personally wouldn't bother with the 1st Edition, as it doesn't feel special enough when you can probably spec it better after the initial early wave of orders have passed. No word on the lower ranking spec prices, but the 77kWh battery in a car this size could be a game changer. Handling, brakes, steering and ride are all up there, but it certainly felt less sporty than my Kia Soul, or the Mini Se.'
On the whole, I'm still glad I binned the pre-order - 77kWh battery is the one for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yntwHNCDBo&fe...
Comments:
'Jonny only had 2 hours to film the car, so this is more of a Vlog, but once he flew home from Wolfsburg to digest his thoughts, he wrote the following: 'The exterior is pleasant, with its side profile being a grower. The space inside is phenomenal, given its dimensions. The layout of the interior is pleasing, however there are more hard plastic surfaces than the equivalent Golfs. An e-Golf probably feels more premium inside. VW's new infotainment system (which is shared with the new mk8 Golf) is a disappointment. It is so damn confusing to do the simple functions, such as switching on AC, which comes as a result of wanting to reduce physical switches and rely more on touch screens and voice commands. That's a big mistake to me.
'The ID.3 drives beautifully and has a definite Golf DNA feeling to it. I personally wouldn't bother with the 1st Edition, as it doesn't feel special enough when you can probably spec it better after the initial early wave of orders have passed. No word on the lower ranking spec prices, but the 77kWh battery in a car this size could be a game changer. Handling, brakes, steering and ride are all up there, but it certainly felt less sporty than my Kia Soul, or the Mini Se.'
On the whole, I'm still glad I binned the pre-order - 77kWh battery is the one for me.
SWoll said:
Ah, no center armrest either so can see where you're coming from. Hate that, the i3 came with one that could be angled for comfort despite similar ergonomics.
Some of the pictures of the ID3 interior show what looks like a pair of folding centre arm rests. ETA: In fact that video review above shows them too.
kambites said:
LiIon cells are running at about $130/kwh at the moment, so a 60kwh battery pack will contain roughly £6000 worth of cells at current market prices. It's a fair chunk, certainly, and you need to add a bit to that to get the total cost of the pack, but we're rather past the time when manufacturers can claim "the whole cost of an EV" is the batteries. Realistically I think the drivetrain cost of a mid-range ID3 (excluding R&D costs) will break down roughly as follows:
Cells: £6k
All battery cooling hardware: £500
Inverter/power controller: £500
Motor: £1000
Charger: £200
Various others (high-voltage cables, etc): £500
That gives you a total drivetrain cost of somewhere around the £9k mark to the manufacturer.
I don't know what the full drivetrain cost for a modern emissions compliant diesel engine with a DSG type gearbox is but I can't see it being less than £5k so that gives a difference in drivetrain cost of around £4k. Now knock the government grant off that and you get pretty much price parity to the customer as VW originally promised.
In the short term I think higher prices for EVs comes down to the R&D costs being spread over a smaller number of units, but the point of the ID3 was that it was supposed to change that. If prices end up higher than original promised, I suspect it'll be because VAG have downgraded their forecast of how many they can sell, either because they don't have the battery supply or because customer demand has disappeared. Or of course it could just be the fact that the cost to manufacture a car has never played much part in how much it's worth on the market.
There must also be an element of making early adopters pay through the nose just because they can. Cells: £6k
All battery cooling hardware: £500
Inverter/power controller: £500
Motor: £1000
Charger: £200
Various others (high-voltage cables, etc): £500
That gives you a total drivetrain cost of somewhere around the £9k mark to the manufacturer.
I don't know what the full drivetrain cost for a modern emissions compliant diesel engine with a DSG type gearbox is but I can't see it being less than £5k so that gives a difference in drivetrain cost of around £4k. Now knock the government grant off that and you get pretty much price parity to the customer as VW originally promised.
In the short term I think higher prices for EVs comes down to the R&D costs being spread over a smaller number of units, but the point of the ID3 was that it was supposed to change that. If prices end up higher than original promised, I suspect it'll be because VAG have downgraded their forecast of how many they can sell, either because they don't have the battery supply or because customer demand has disappeared. Or of course it could just be the fact that the cost to manufacture a car has never played much part in how much it's worth on the market.
Edited by kambites on Friday 31st July 06:42
Bigger profit at the start while competition is relatively low. When there's 10 C segment BEV hatchbacks to choose from you'd better make sure yours is really good, or cheaper.
ash73 said:
What an idiot. This is probably the most important EV on the market, he should have made more effort. Talk about damning it with faint praise.
From what I understood, he didn't get that much time with the car, not by his own choice?I thought he did his best to be very positive about it tbh...
Witchfinder said:
ash73 said:
He was more worried about catching his plane than reviewing the car.
It's this guy for real?ash73 said:
I think it looks really good, but the First Edition nonsense makes it sound expensive. The whole point is this is more affordable, and practical, than Tesla flatpacks and Honda trinkets.
Scratchy plastics, fisher price dash and the looks of a scaled up BMW i3 from 2014 only less interesting. Couple that with being a bit dull to drive and not very quick even in range topping form and you've got another middle of the road VW product that will appeal to the masses who like that kind of thing. I'm sure it will sell well.aestetix1 said:
The biggest worry seems to be the weight. It appears to be a bit marginal to the point where the bigger battery is so heavy you can't also have other heavy options like the pano roof.
It's "only" 1650kg in launch spec (ie with the mid-sized battery). No light-weight certainly, and pretty heavy for a C-segment hatch, but hardly pushing the boundaries of driving licence categories! kambites said:
aestetix1 said:
The biggest worry seems to be the weight. It appears to be a bit marginal to the point where the bigger battery is so heavy you can't also have other heavy options like the pano roof.
It's "only" 1650kg in launch spec (ie with the mid-sized battery). No light-weight certainly, and pretty heavy for a C-segment hatch, but hardly pushing the boundaries of driving licence categories! Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff