Why are the VW ID.x range so cheap?

[jason61c]

Flooble said:

I see they have rejigged the prices again and they are only just above 30k now. VW always used to price a notch above the competition, e.g. a Polo was priced closer to an Astra than a Corsa. But with the ID range they seem to be undercutting even Hyundai and Kia.

Any idea what is going on?

they undercut Hyundai and Kia as the quality or tech isn't to the same standard and they come with half the warranty length.

[anonymous-user]

Smiljan said:

What I don't still understand is the cost, is it really just the battery because if you take the Kona for example, the ICE version has many more components including a complex engine and gearbox, exhaust system, etc... which the EV version doesn't need yet the EV version is vastly more expensive.

With the ID3 they've scrimped and saved at every corner and yet still the Golf 8 is cheaper.

How much do these batteries cost currently to cause that or is it just the development costs have to factored in for this new platform in VW's case?

It's fundamentally because the powertrain is not from the existing supply chain, and is currently only made in very low volumes (relatively)

OE volume car production is ALL about amortisation and logistics, and EV powertrains are currently not part of that supply ecosystem.

For example, take an alternator




the bit on your car that charges the battery, how much do you think the likes of VW pay for a single one? Look at it, complex high grade metal castings, high speed high precision bearings, integrated electronics, coper windings, slip rings etc a fairly complex little thing.

well they pay way less than $10 for one. why/how? Because a company like Bosch make over 10 million a year!!

[DMZ]

Flooble said:

I see they have rejigged the prices again and they are only just above 30k now. VW always used to price a notch above the competition, e.g. a Polo was priced closer to an Astra than a Corsa. But with the ID range they seem to be undercutting even Hyundai and Kia.

Any idea what is going on?

Yeah. Stuff like the Golf is/was unmatched in terms of engineering content. DSG box, sophisticated suspension, high quality interiors. You can charge extra for that. And VW built a great reputation based on this.

The ID:3 is cheap because it’s cheap. Low quality interiors, poor seats, nothing sophisticated anywhere, buggy software.

Somehow or another VW has changed strategy. Now it’s low price point above all else. Personally I find it quite surprising seeing as everyone got used to paying a relative premium for VW cars. Why you would give up something so difficult to achieve is a bit puzzling.

[DaveGrohl]

DMZ said:

Flooble said:

I see they have rejigged the prices again and they are only just above 30k now. VW always used to price a notch above the competition, e.g. a Polo was priced closer to an Astra than a Corsa. But with the ID range they seem to be undercutting even Hyundai and Kia.

Any idea what is going on?

Yeah. Stuff like the Golf is/was unmatched in terms of engineering content. DSG box, sophisticated suspension, high quality interiors. You can charge extra for that. And VW built a great reputation based on this.

The ID:3 is cheap because it’s cheap. Low quality interiors, poor seats, nothing sophisticated anywhere, buggy software.

Somehow or another VW has changed strategy. Now it’s low price point above all else. Personally I find it quite surprising seeing as everyone got used to paying a relative premium for VW cars. Why you would give up something so difficult to achieve is a bit puzzling.

Having sat in a mk8 Golf it's quite clear that VW have decided to build cars as cheaply as possible for some reason. The mk8 is nasty inside. The difference in quality between the mk7 and 8 is stark. I haven't felt the need to sit in an ID3 because it looks like they've turned the cheapness dial up to 11. Sorry swiped the sensor to 11, oh hang on nothing's happened, I'll have another go. Oh that's 7, I'll try again..... you know what I mean.

When you're building cars like these you can't price them the same as you used to.

[raspy]

Aren't VW simply losing money in order to build market share? ->

"The magazine says Volkswagen expects to lose about €3000 ($4730) on every ID hatch sold, with profitability forecast to begin around 2025."

https://www.caradvice.com.au/751743/volkswagen-id-...

Although the ID cars are cheaper to build than the e-Golf

"Volkswagen's new ID.3 electric vehicle will be 40% cheaper to build than the electric version of its Golf model, Chief Executive Herbert Diess told investors on Monday."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-elec...

[Fusion777]

Just looking and you can get a new 58 kWh Life for £25,263 now, so prices are definitely falling quite significantly. ID4 looks a better car than the ID3, but I'm still not going electric yet.

Nissan Leaf Acenta (albeit only 40 kWh), £21,376 new on Broadspeed. Loads of choice under £30k now.

[stevemcs]

DMZ said:

Yeah. Stuff like the Golf is/was unmatched in terms of engineering content. DSG box, sophisticated suspension, high quality interiors.

The only part I agree on there is the interiors, dsg is a clunky and unreliable and nearly every golf we mot has leaking shock absorbers

The id3 looks cheap inside and the outside doesn’t look like it’s had any design put into it

[Dave_Rich]

Why do people who haven't sat in, driven or owned feel the need to rubbish a car.

I would suggest that the OP researches owners rather than take notice of the tripe posted in this thread.

[GT911]

JonChalk said:

So what Torque is saying is that the combination of item qty multiplied by value of a BEV's Bill of Materials is about 75% lower than an equivalent ICE

Small but important correction, 75% of, not 75% lower. Two very different results.

[Flooble]

Dave_Rich said:

Why do people who haven't sat in, driven or owned feel the need to rubbish a car.

I would suggest that the OP researches owners rather than take notice of the tripe posted in this thread.

Are you saying that VW are trying to attract a different demographic? I'm confused what "researches owners" means - the price point being set by VW, not the owners.

My curiosity was why VW isn't trying to charge its usual premium for the ID range. Even if the ID cars are cheap and nasty with a short warranty and likelihood of breaking down on the way home from the showroom, it didn't explain why VW isn't even trying to make a margin on them. Since the EV market is still small and some people would pay essentially any amount for an EV with a VW badge regardless of whether it was any good or not, given the prices of competitors cars I didn't see why they aren't trying to charge ~£40K, i.e. just under Tesla prices (Tesla having perhaps the only badge that could draw people away from VW - how many people buying a petrol car consider either a VW Golf or a Kia Ceed?). For VW to instead be pitching at £25-30K is something I found curious, which has largely been answered by a variety of the above posts.

[Silverage]

Dave_Rich said:

Why do people who haven't sat in, driven or owned feel the need to rubbish a car.

I would suggest that the OP researches owners rather than take notice of the tripe posted in this thread.

I’ve had my ID.3 for over three months now. There’s no doubt it’s built down to a price and it is not a patch interior quality-wise on my previous Golf 7 GTI and Tiguan R-Line. The main screen which virtually every aspect of the operation of the car goes through is absolutely rubbish. I’ve got used to it now and can operate it, but it is in no way a pleasure to use.

I bought the car through my business and it was the best available for the money I had to spent at the time. I’m going to give it a year and then it will be going in favour of something better.

[Dave_Rich]

Silverage said:

Dave_Rich said:

Why do people who haven't sat in, driven or owned feel the need to rubbish a car.

I would suggest that the OP researches owners rather than take notice of the tripe posted in this thread.

I’ve had my ID.3 for over three months now. There’s no doubt it’s built down to a price and it is not a patch interior quality-wise on my previous Golf 7 GTI and Tiguan R-Line. The main screen which virtually every aspect of the operation of the car goes through is absolutely rubbish. I’ve got used to it now and can operate it, but it is in no way a pleasure to use.

I bought the car through my business and it was the best available for the money I had to spent at the time. I’m going to give it a year and then it will be going in favour of something better.

So that's one qualified opinion.

On the flipside there appears to be many happy owners on the SpeakEV forum.

Having test driven one myself my view is that VW are trying to supply what many people have been crying out for, a good, reasonably priced EV.

Perhaps VW think there is mileage in going back to 'the people's car' ?

[Megaflow]

Max_Torque said:

It's fundamentally because the powertrain is not from the existing supply chain, and is currently only made in very low volumes (relatively)

OE volume car production is ALL about amortisation and logistics, and EV powertrains are currently not part of that supply ecosystem.

For example, take an alternator




the bit on your car that charges the battery, how much do you think the likes of VW pay for a single one? Look at it, complex high grade metal castings, high speed high precision bearings, integrated electronics, coper windings, slip rings etc a fairly complex little thing.

well they pay way less than $10 for one. why/how? Because a company like Bosch make over 10 million a year!!

The volumes the company I work for are way below pass car volumes, but st the bed, and alternator for $10. We were happy when the baby ones came in below $40.

[Silverage]

Dave_Rich said:

So that's one qualified opinion.

On the flipside there appears to be many happy owners on the SpeakEV forum.

Having test driven one myself my view is that VW are trying to supply what many people have been crying out for, a good, reasonably priced EV.

Perhaps VW think there is mileage in going back to 'the people's car' ?

The car itself is fine for what it is but I defy anyone to be happy with the infotainment and the software in general. I’m on SpeakEV myself and several owners are tearing their hair out with their cars being at the dealers for literally weeks for a software upgrade. When mine went in, it only took the “standard” two days to do.

[Dave_Rich]

Silverage said:

Dave_Rich said:

So that's one qualified opinion.

On the flipside there appears to be many happy owners on the SpeakEV forum.

Having test driven one myself my view is that VW are trying to supply what many people have been crying out for, a good, reasonably priced EV.

Perhaps VW think there is mileage in going back to 'the people's car' ?

The car itself is fine for what it is but I defy anyone to be happy with the infotainment and the software in general. I’m on SpeakEV myself and several owners are tearing their hair out with their cars being at the dealers for literally weeks for a software upgrade. When mine went in, it only took the “standard” two days to do.

I have definitely seen owners saying that the infotainment system is fine on SpeakEV. If you are on there you have surely read them.

[AER]

Max_Torque said:

And of course pure mass means nothing. Go buy a tonne of sand and a tonne of gold and report back!

You kind of prove my point really, especially when you start talking about ten-buck alternators. At that price, material costs are a substantial proportion of the total cost, so, yes, OEMs are to some extent effectively buying their parts by the pound.

The difference between a bunch of steel and aluminium bits plus a few injection moulded plastic widgets compared to several hundred kg (extra!) of highly processed wierd materials that don't work if you let the concentrations of unobtanium wander or the purity of the electrolyte smeg go awry - yes, they're all going to be a bit more expensive for quite some time and possibly forever compared to what we currently manufacture for ICEs. It's one thing to supply a few ug of amazingly expensive material for an iPhone, quite another to delivery 400kg or so per unit at a high production rate.

IMO you can see it in Tesla's economics. Massive investment in lowering costs, vertical integration, innovative design solutions etc which is all super cool and I applaud them for it all, but still the cars aren't so cheap and the company isn't hugely profitable on an ROI basis. Yes, it'll change and improve but the thrust of my argument is probably not as fast as people imagine.

[cossey]

AER said:

Max_Torque said:

And of course pure mass means nothing. Go buy a tonne of sand and a tonne of gold and report back!

You kind of prove my point really, especially when you start talking about ten-buck alternators. At that price, material costs are a substantial proportion of the total cost, so, yes, OEMs are to some extent effectively buying their parts by the pound.

The difference between a bunch of steel and aluminium bits plus a few injection moulded plastic widgets compared to several hundred kg (extra!) of highly processed wierd materials that don't work if you let the concentrations of unobtanium wander or the purity of the electrolyte smeg go awry - yes, they're all going to be a bit more expensive for quite some time and possibly forever compared to what we currently manufacture for ICEs. It's one thing to supply a few ug of amazingly expensive material for an iPhone, quite another to delivery 400kg or so per unit at a high production rate.

IMO you can see it in Tesla's economics. Massive investment in lowering costs, vertical integration, innovative design solutions etc which is all super cool and I applaud them for it all, but still the cars aren't so cheap and the company isn't hugely profitable on an ROI basis. Yes, it'll change and improve but the thrust of my argument is probably not as fast as people imagine.

Lets look at some ICE components that are not charged by the pound:
As used on a GTD Golf
2500 bar common rail injection system ~350 Euros
twin SCR system ~200 Euros the catalysts will add >300 more)
exhaust sensors 20-120 Euros each (and there are 5-6 of them in a MK8 Golf)

75-80% of a typical hatchback in Europe is spent between the crash bar and the bulkhead (IE under the bonnet) when you look at fully amortised prices (IE including tooling and development costs). this is why MQB exists, ruthlessly reusing the same core components, software and base calibration across so many models is the only way to keep costs under control.

If the EU7 rules are as harsh as some of the consultation options are suggesting, anything non hybrid will largely go so there will be an even bigger incentive to stop ICE development and spend it on EVs. For most people they will end up with better cars. I am just hopeful that once the bread and butter models are the norm they can find time to make some enthusiast level EVs that concentrate more that just 0-60.

[dmsims]

Smiljan said:

With the ID3 they've scrimped and saved at every corner and yet still the Golf 8 is cheaper.

Custard time..........

[zayn]

VW group - Post MK7.5 golf and now the EV revolution will bankrupt them already having decided to sell of Bugatti and possibly next Lamborigini to raise capital for there EV goals

Poor Quality on ID3 build and slow development in software Technology is showing and even on Premium Q4 etron cheapness is evident which would never of happened on traditional fossil Q4

Trying to please both fossil and New EV customers is not working and they need to reduce output in fossil cars to reap investment in quality of materials and technology (software and hardware) as well as battery gigaplants

[kambites]

Hopefully the software niggles will get solved - that seems more of a factor of their switch to their own OS rather than anything to do with the drive-train.

The drop in perceived quality of the interiors is a more difficult one though. Especially since the Korean competition seem to be getting stronger and stronger in this area.