Ot - vw id.4?

[R3awak3n]

those dealers will eventually be like blockbusters...

or they won't because they will adapt when money is not coming in on the reg.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

those dealers will eventually be like blockbusters...

or they won't because they will adapt when money is not coming in on the reg.

The problem is that they won't properly take care of the EV stock. I bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf used as a demo in 2017 with only 715 miles on it for 1/2 of new car price. But the dealer hadn't kept it properly charged so it actually had the battery capacity of a car that had been driven for 30,000 miles or so. And when we went to drive it away, after 2 freakin' hours of paperwork, they hadn't charged the car so we waited another 1-1/2 hours so we could drive it home.

Then I learned that a Nissan mile is 4,000 feet. We never, even in warm weather, got the puny rated range out of that car. The Bolt is an absolute champ however.

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Really dumb. Take customer's buying decisions out of their hands.
Business Reduction and Elimination Philosophy...

For right below, indeed...mee too...

I suspect that they will hold this line until it becomes overly obvious that they are loosing sales and then they will embrace EV's and tell everyone that they were early adopters and have always loved them.

Hypocrisy is no longer a thing.

dave

[benb]

I've test driven the ID.4 and liked.. I'm just not at the point where I'm ready to buy a new car. Also there are lots of other similar EVs I've never driven that I'd want to drive before buying. I'm 6'1" and don't remember feeling like there was any lack of head room or legroom. It felt very roomy just like my Subaru does.

The funny thing is even around here in a big city area it feels like it will be a PITA to go test drive any of them. The only reason I tried the ID.4 is the VW dealership is barely a mile away and I was getting tires on my car next door and walked over and asked about the ID.4.

I think a lot of the "it doesn't do 0-60 in 3 seconds" stuff is semi-silly. It's a family SUV. Do you really want it to be that fast? My kid will eventually have to drive the next car I own, and a 0-60 in 3 second vehicle is not something I want a teenager anywhere near. It's an EV, the throttle response is pretty instantaneous and it feels cake for the ID.4 to move with confidence in our 80-90mph traffic here when I drove it on the highway. 0-60 is sometimes a meaningless spec because most of the time you're not launching vehicles like this at a drag strip. The Magazine guys do it, and any family vehicle where the computers were designed without a launch in mind is going to feel slower on a 0-60 test than it does in the real world.

I thought it felt REALLY heavy compared to my Outback. The batteries mean it barely leans over but it still really feels very heavy. It doesn't really matter, it is probably faster in every measure compared to my Outback until the batteries start to overheat, but you can't hide the mass and it is there. I drove it in the rain and got a pretty thorough test drive on back roads, rough roads, highway, did some cloverleafs, etc.. In any case I would not be looking at a vehicle like the ID.4 to pretend I'm a race car driver.

RWD traction was amazing in the rain. There haven't been any AWD ones to test drive around here.

The tire packages seemed stupid for real SUV use cases. The one I drove had 20" or 21" rubber band tires IIRC. The suspension is good but I went down some dirt roads along areas I go hike and bike and compared to the 55 series tires on my Outback the ID.4 felt like if you use it as an active person SUV you'd be far more likely to get a flat on a dirt road or something. Just flat out dumb but all the SUVs are doing this right now.

Everything about the interior, etc.. seemed to work for us. Almost all new cars I drive these days have annoying touch screens. I'm not sure I really though the ID.4 was really that bad. I hated that it couldn't display independent tire pressure readouts like most new cars do though. That's dumb cost savings and the ID.4 is not a cheap vehicle.

Charging is so location dependent. For me Tesla or not Tesla is not really going to be a big deal more than 1-2 times a year. Around where I live chargers are just everywhere, and 99% of the time I'd never need them anyway. It'd just get plugged in every night in the garage.

We do ski/snowboard, the mountain we mostly go to is 180 miles round trip. If the ID.4 really drops down below 200 miles in winter weather that would suck pretty hard. That mountain happens to have a lot of off highway driving to get there, so maybe that'd help, but a charging stop would really kind of suck for that trip. It's 1.5-2 hours each way depending on traffic & weather (frequent snow on the road) and we rarely stop on that trip. Having to stop for a charging stop of 30 minutes would add a decent amount to the total time for the drive.

[jm714]

I bought a Chevy Bolt in June of 21 and ordered a AWD Mach E in October of 21. I took delivery of the Mach E 367 days after I ordered it. I have 2700 miles on it in six weeks. So far the car has been perfect. The AWD with the weight of the car has made it feel like it stuck to the road in the rain. I can put my 63cm road bike in the back with the front wheel off no problem. I think buying a year one of any car is always risky, but I’m in a ‘22 so those Consumer Reports comments are not worrying me that much yet. I have experience using the California Lemon Law on a VW Passat so there’s always that option if it does become problematic. On the Mach E forums I hang out on it is interesting to see all the cold climate people complaining about their range once the temps dropped this fall. I thought it was a given that people would know that, but you still see people complaining about going from 250 in the summer to 160 now.

[benb]

Just looking a little further it sounds like the ID.4 winter range would push me right over to the Model Y.

It will suck to spend an extra $15-20k but the ID.4 going from 250 -> 160 in some of these tests would really wreck those skiing days, etc.. The extra range on the Model Y would make it much less likely there was a charging stop or two.

They need to start offering the heat pump if it would help. It's kind of silly someone in Montreal would get it but Montana or Vermont or Maine don't.

The 160 miles in the winter was apparently at 10F/-12C and that is probably a very cold day here but not unheard of at all. And they averaged 68mph with putting the cruise on 75mph.. that would be pretty fast average speed and hard to do here, but the test was also in the midwest, so they didn't have to climb over mountains.

[p nut]

Originally Posted by benb

Just looking a little further it sounds like the ID.4 winter range would push me right over to the Model Y.

It will suck to spend an extra $15-20k but the ID.4 going from 250 -> 160 in some of these tests would really wreck those skiing days, etc.. The extra range on the Model Y would make it much less likely there was a charging stop or two.

They need to start offering the heat pump if it would help. It's kind of silly someone in Montreal would get it but Montana or Vermont or Maine don't.

Most, if not all ski resorts around here have charging stations. Hook it up when you get there and it should be topped off when you’re ready to leave. Certainly not worth spending $15k just for that (in my opinion).

[Ozz]

Does anyone know when VW/Audi are going to start rolling out their solid state batteries? I read 2025 somewhere, but only one source and nothing really "official".....or is this just wishful thinking?

[rnhood]

If that VW is available as a hybrid, that is what I would consider. There are too many drawbacks with the all electric vehicles, imho. The hybrids give far more flexibility in use. There again, if you are only going to use it a short distance commuter then it's probably fine.

[benb]

Originally Posted by p nut

Most, if not all ski resorts around here have charging stations. Hook it up when you get there and it should be topped off when you’re ready to leave. Certainly not worth spending $15k just for that (in my opinion).

Great point but where we go did not have any last year. And even if they put in a giant charging station with 50 chargers I’d never bet on getting one. And the largest station I’ve seen was a 12 spot Tesla supercharger station. Most non Tesla ones I see are 4-6 max.

Reality of ski areas here is thousands of cars spread among numerous parking lots some of which are not paved or lit. I’d generally not even be able to predict which lot I’d be stuck in.

There are chargers on the way. It’s just a delay and less time riding/skiing.

This is too bad of course. My gas car can do about 3 round trips on a tank. Luckily for me the gas car is probably going to last till solid state batteries hit the market.

[pasadena]

It's a race between several battery makers to get solid state into production.I also heard 2025ish- which probably means 2030. VW probably won't be the first vendor, most likely Tesla, Hyundai or, surprisingly, Toyota.
Toyota doesn't really believe in EV's for now. They believe hybrid and plug-in hybrid is the way (their product line reflects this).

The two largest innovations will be solid state batteries and wireless charging.These will go hand in hand with autonomous driving development where we will no longer have a "gas station" mentality towards vehicles.

It will be a situation where you leave the car parked, the entire cue will be autonomous. Your car will pull up, over the charging plate, then go park itself out of the way when done.

Originally Posted by Ozz

Does anyone know when VW/Audi are going to start rolling out their solid state batteries? I read 2025 somewhere, but only one source and nothing really "official".....or is this just wishful thinking?

[tv_vt]

Originally Posted by 572cv

As a data point, in October in France, we had a '22 VW Golf R Hybrid as our rental. Just wanted to note that the fit, finish and overall quality feel (quiet, nice fabric, tasteful interior, well proportioned screen) was terrific. We really liked the car. Handling was superb. Good seats.

Unfortunately, VW quit selling hybrids in the US around 2017. We've had a 2016 Jetta hybrid for a while now, and it is a great car. If we could get an R Hybrid, I think we'd be all over it.

We had one dealer tell us our 2016 Jetta hybrid was one of only something like 70 of them sold in the US that year. Makes us nervous about service technicians - how many are out there who actually know these cars?

[mcteague]

More food for thought:

Report: Middle America Just Isn’t Having EVs
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ca...g-evs-44497776

Tim

[572cv]

Originally Posted by tv_vt

Unfortunately, VW quit selling hybrids in the US around 2017. We've had a 2016 Jetta hybrid for a while now, and it is a great car. If we could get an R Hybrid, I think we'd be all over it.

We had one dealer tell us our 2016 Jetta hybrid was one of only something like 70 of them sold in the US that year. Makes us nervous about service technicians - how many are out there who actually know these cars?

Yes, I knew the hybrid wasn't available here.... I looked when I got back( oh well). I just wanted to offer a comment on the experience of a current VW. We would look hard at the R hybrid too, if it were here.

[benb]

Originally Posted by mcteague

More food for thought:

Report: Middle America Just Isn’t Having EVs
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ca...g-evs-44497776

Tim

So much of this is cultural (types of vehicles available) and chicken before the egg type issues.

A lot of places in the middle of the country are are lagging behind on charging stations, so you're going to be more inclined to wait. Meanwhile the politicians are less inclined to want to push EVs, so they don't want to build those charging stations and then the tail wags the dog and they say no need to do so because drivers here aren't buying EVs anyway.

And on top of that those are the areas that buy the most giant pickup trucks, and the EV market is still not really ready to attack giant pickup trucks. Giant pickup trucks are of course very expensive to begin with, and people seem to have them even when you can't figure out where the money is coming from, so they'll probably overspend on giant EV pickup trucks when attractive models targeted at them really start arriving. Money is not really an excuse there I think, more just a lack of pickup trucks. The F-150 lightning is barely out of the gates, and that's not going to sell to guys who have a bowtie or ram tattoo, only someone whose already a Ford guy. Personally I've seen more Rivians already than F-150 Lightnings! I see a Rivian almost every day and I've still only spotted one F-150 Lightning in the wild.