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Volkswagen Seeks To Repair Its Image By Focusing On Electric (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The emissions scandal that's plagued Volkswagen over the past month will be tough to recover from. But they're trying. The company announced a number of changes they're making to their line of vehicles. First, they'll be revamping their flagship Phaeton vehicles to be all-electric. (If you live in the U.S. and haven't heard of these, don't be surprised — they aren't marketed there.) Second, they've announced their intention to install top-of-the-line environmental protection systems in their new diesel cars. (In other words, they'll actually do what they're required by law to do, but vehicle prices will jump significantly.) Their press release is difficult to decipher, given the density of buzzwords and vague promises, but they indicate a greater general focus on hybrids and electric vehicles in the future.
So VW decides to "fix" a problem that (technically) is a US only issue by greenwashing up a car they don't sell in the US.
The irony...
I'd say Volkswagon can count on the short term memory of the buying public.
Like a bad breakup, time will heal this, too.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
And shall be known as the Phaeton Torpedo
A low-speed electric motor for idling situations. I was just thinking this at the drive-in the other day, an electric motor to handle that would be much more workable, I didn't know that it'd take 93 seconds for my food to get out, but I did know I'd be going very slow. The same might apply in other situations, like at a stop light, or in congested traffic.
I just don't know if the transmission interchange is worth it.
Any thoughts, ye wise of Dotted Slash?
Because the EPA requirements are zealous, and makes producing a diesel vehicle unviable. The funny thing is electric cars are the real unviable vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles are the best idea, only waste they produce from the combustion of hydrogen is water.
Rules and Regulations dictated from on high by some collection of bureaucrats—whose greatest achievement was to convince even dumber people to cast "votes" for their election to office—are always going to be a fantasy.
No doubt, solutions need to be found to pollution and climate change, etc., but the world also needs to function. If it weren't for Volkswagen's "cheating", then the world would have been a much poorer place.
It isn't US only issue, they've messed things up in other countries as well.
3.6m european cars need hardware fix:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/v...
Before that, there was (mostly unnoticed) "oscar scandal" with ADAC rigging votes in favour of VW Golf:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/774a...
VW is rather "known" in German auto industry for having cars that perform on par (e.g. VW Sharan vs Ford S-Max) yet are regarded as way better cars by many journalists "for some reason".
Try making reliable electronic systems. I know of no one who's bought a VW made in the last 10 years who hasn't fought with electronic engine control system gremlins. From a consumer standpoint, that's a much bigger issue, and the reason for the growing number who won't consider buying a VW.
Fines and pledges not to cheat again would do more to repair their image.
VW need to contribute to infrastructure in countries where they are sold. For example, in the UK most of the rapid charger network was paid for by Nissan, and a lesser number by Renault. Other EV and PHEV manufacturers like BMW, VW, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Toyota and the rest contributed next to nothing, and we badly need more infrastructure to support their vehicles.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I always thought of Phaeton as a very nice car name, as in "Dad, might I have your car for a ride?
And by that is due to fine print saying you must use our arbitration system and the courts will just say that.
Electric technology is not hard. Infact, it is ridiculously easy compared to designing a low-emissions, direct injected, variable timing, variable geometry turbocharged combustion engine that needs to do 300,000 kms in a range of harsh conditions. Even Tesla uses a pretty compromised powertrain design (oversized induction motor without multi-speed gearbox) because is just doesn't really matter at this point (plus they get the ludicrous mode thing as a byproduct).
The only issue electric cars have now is the cost of the batteries. And the only way this will be solved is through building more and better battery factories.
I imagine this is why existing car companies are so reluctant to jump into the electric market. All of them will realise that at some point battery prices will cause them to have to write off billions in sunk investment costs, but what CEO would want to spend money to bring that day forward.
Why won't Slashdot post the news that Freeman Dyson said that climate change was a load of bunk and that the climate models are completely wrong?
I did an obsessive amount of research on VW's clean diesel technology, and the engineering issues that motivated their decision to cheat. Going hybrid would solve all their problems. Well, the technical ones anyway.
The problem is that their patented "clean NOx trap" pollution control technology involves storing NOx pollution in a zeolite "molecular sponge". The sponge needs to be cleaned out periodically by changing the engine fuel-to-air ratio: when that happens (for a few seconds every minute or two), engine performance is drastically reduced. VW's engine computer tries to keep this from happening while the driver is accelerating, but apparently it wasn't good enough, so they programmed the computer to not bother with trap cleaning unless it's being tested in an EPA lab.
With a full hybrid system, the engine can run at optimum efficiency at all times, and can take a break to clean the NOx trap whenever it wants: the electric motor and batteries can take over.
I think Volkswagen should really pursue the Cross Blue concept they unveiled years ago. This would be a seven passenger SUV with a diesel generator for the electric motor with plug-in-hybrid capabilities. This would be similar to the Mitsubishi vehicle which is selling so many they still have not been able to bring it to the US. They should move in this direction where they use the diesel engines as the generator instead of the direct drive model. I would think a diesel engine run at a specific RPM would be able to pass emissions testing as they could then run it specifically for lower emissions.
Because the EPA requirements are zealous, and makes producing a diesel vehicle unviable.
No it does not. Diesels can easily meet the emissions rules and there are plenty of vehicles that do it without cheating. VW cheated because they didn't want to install the expensive equipment necessary to make this happen such as a urea injection system. It has nothing to do with diesel technology and everything to do with profit motive. VW cheated to pad their bottom line.
The funny thing is electric cars are the real unviable vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles are the best idea, only waste they produce from the combustion of hydrogen is water.
Umm, what? Hydrogen powered cars are clearly a non-starter at this time. Basically zero fuel infrastructure unless you use derivatives of hydrocarbons which basically ends up with the same sort of emissions problems we currently face. They've got high emissions intensity because our primary source of hydrogen is from natural gas. They also have low performance (comparatively) and poor efficiency (comparatively) with PHEVs. While conceptually hydrogen power has some attractive features, in practice it isn't superior to existing alternatives and there is no evidence to suggest that will change in the near future.
Since you think (wrongly IMO) that electric cars are "unviable", I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you otherwise but so far the evidence does not appear to be agreeing with you. Electric and hybrid electric vehicles are pretty clearly the next evolution in automobiles and that only happens if they are a viable technology.
The Phaeton was sold in the US when it was introduced. However, the sales of the $70K VW were not good so they decided to withdraw it from the US Market.
The phaeton was Ferdinand Piëch's pet project, who was VW AGs CEO at the time, and was part of an effort to take VW upscale as the currency conversion of Euros to Dollars (paying Euros to make cars sold for Dollars) was making it difficult to make a profit on mass market cars
But, it's a miserable vehicle. Good luck if you can find a used one as they all literally broke down after time and became unusable. In less than 5 years or something absurd.
When my mid 90s turbo Passat was in the shop (multiple times), they had the Phaeton in the showroom. I was struck by how expensive it was for something that wasn't very special (in comparison to other marques in a similar price range)
Try making reliable electronic systems. I know of no one who's bought a VW made in the last 10 years who hasn't fought with electronic engine control system gremlins.
10 years? Hell I owned a series of VWs from 1985-2003. (Scirocco, Golf, GTI, Jetta) My father owned several (3 Sciroccos, 2 Jettas, a Golf and a Passat plus Audi 5000) from 1977 to this year. My sister has owned several (Fox, Golf, Audi A3). EVERY single one of them save three, had electrical problems at one time or another. Usually something minor but sooner or later something electrical would break well before it should have been expected to break.
VWs in my experience will last a long time but you can absolutely count on having them in the shop for one thing or another routinely. Electrical gremlins are routine and problem the most common problem I've run into. VW vehicles are durable but not especially reliable in my experience.
So would I buy an electrical car from VW? HELL NO!
> Phaeton
Right. So what they're going to do is make yet another "Tesla killer" that sells to a few thousand rich people, and leave all the people that bought a Jetta in the cold. The net effect of this on overall emissions will be basically zero.
Perhaps they would be better off spending this on making a diesel hybrid PEH drivetrain that could equip 80% of the cars they sell? This is a move that takes far less development, would cost less in real dollar terms, and would *drastically* reduce overall real-world emissions.
Rather than have diesel hybrid cars it would be better to have diesel electric cars.
Inch for inch a Golf. 85 mile range. Down to USD$28K ($21K after the tax credit). For $500 Bosch comes and installs a fast charger in your garage. What's not to like?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I am talking about hydrogen powered combustion engines, they produce more power than a gasoline engine.
Did you actually read the article you linked to?
Power: Hydrogen 80kW vs Gasoline 154kW
Torque: Hydrogen 140Nm vs Gasoline 222Nm
Range: Hydrogen 100 km vs Gasoline 550km
When powered by hydrogen it is worse in each and every relevant measure. A LOT worse.
Channel reality series? Oh, wait, that was done already - and ABC called it "Lost"
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The only issue electric cars have now is the cost of the batteries.
That is not the only problem though it is an important one. And that problem will be solved with scaled up production as you mention.
The biggest problem electric vehicles have is refueling time and as a byproduct of that, range. They're making excellent progress on this but aren't quite there yet. I figure they either need to get the range up to 700+ miles with an under 1 hour recharge time or they need to get the recharge time to under 15 minutes with a 250 mile range. I think that is doable but it will be a few years before we're really there.
Diesel hybrid is a nonsense.
Really? Every locomotive in use today is a diesel electric hybrid. Frankly I think a diesel hybrid would make a lot of sense for many applications, particularly large trucks. Electric motors are great for around town stop/start traffic where diesels aren't so hot and diesels are great for steady state long distance driving (like highways) where electric motors aren't so hot. Their strengths are very complimentary.
I know they exist, but still the whole hybrid jazz is about overcoming problems of petrol engine the diesel just does not have.
Diesel engines are not *that* much different from gasoline engines.
The Phaeton was sold in the US when it was introduced. However, the sales of the $70K VW were not good so they decided to withdraw it from the US Market.
That's because they sold it under the wrong brand. It should have been an Audi vehicle here in the US. NOBODY thinks of VW as a luxury brand. The Phaeton was a darn good car but VW flunked marketing 101 in selling it. The badge on the front matters when it comes to luxury vehicles. That's the same reason Toyota, Honda and Nissan sell their luxury stuff under Lexus, Acura and Infiniti brands here in the US.
There's an old UK automotive joke: Why do the British drink warm beer? Because they keep it in Lucas refrigerators!"
Unreliable money pit cars. The end.
So I guess that I will have to drive my 15-year old Toyota truck, that still runs on the cheap, "dirty" 500 ppm diesel fuel, for a while longer.
As for petrol/diesel, they differ a lot.
Disagree. There are some important differences but the basic principles of operation are little different. Suck, squish, bang, blow. They mostly differ in what sort of operation they are optimal within. Little different than an Atkinson cycle engine versus an Otto cycle engine.
Enough to make a 20-40% difference in overall car efficiency.
40%? Show me one real world example of a car with a diesel getting 40% better fuel economy than a gasoline engine of similar horsepower in the same chassis. In the real world the fuel economy advantage tends to be 10-20% for any given power output. Diesel does have some advantages but let's not overstate it.
First of all, diesel engine is much more efficient at partial or near-idle load. Idle consumption of the same car is about 1.1l/h gasoline or 0.4l/h diesel.
Diesel is generally better at any steady state than most gasoline engines, not just idle. But much driving is not in steady state so the real world advantage is often less clear for many use cases.
Diesel has better torque distribution. Adding the mass of the battery to a diesel car generally has more effect than optimizing the engine load.
And electrics have still better torque distribution than diesel. Basically full torque immediately from a dead stop. Plus the electric motor provides additional power to deal with the battery weight.
Let me put it to you this way. There is a reason the newest supercars are coming as hybrids. It allows them to optimize performance in ways that are not possible with gasoline or electric alone. It is very reasonable to suppose that there will be use cases where a diesel hybrid will make sense for exactly the same reasons.
Electricity is generated in coal power plants, or in nuclear power plants. Those pollute.
Also, recycling batteries is hard, and it pollutes. The sum of pollution over the lifecycle of an electric car may well be a lot worse than that of a gasoline car.
no, I don't have a sig
How about just having stations with fully charged batteries that can be swapped in?
How would a fine repair their image? All it does is line the pockets of those who receive the fine.
I have a feeling if I had defrauded millions of customers for billions of dollars, I'd probably be bankrupted as a result. Aren't corporations people now?
The sane way to use hydrogen, assuming it can be produced in large enough quantity and without enough pollution to compromise its other advantages, is to create it adjacent to, and then use to it drive, large power plants, which then pass the resulting energy along to vehicles as electricity. Electric vehicles offer something hydrogen vehicles cannot: they are energy agnostic, because you can make electricity in quite a few ways, none of which the electric vehicle even needs to know about, and from there, it's almost trivial to get the energy to most vehicles. Making hydrogen with a coal plant? That has to be most unfortunately indirect, and it just won't ever be practical. But an electric vehicle, today can run from a coal plant today, a nuke tomorrow, tidal when you go to the coast, and solar when you're in the south. Geothermal when you're cruising around Iceland. Etc. And hydrogen, if you build a hydrogen power plant.
Transport and storage for hydrogen are severely problematic, there is no established infrastructure. The infrastructure for electric cars is already mostly in place. They can be plugged in at night when most generating facilities have considerable excess capacity available, and they'll be good to go for the mast majority of use cases, which will be short to moderate range. Furthermore, if the charging station is built with local storage, it can be accumulating energy when the vehicle isn't present and deliver it to the vehicle later, which will smooth the peak grid load out even further.
Batteries are unlikely to be the long term energy storage of choice in vehicles, but for now, they're a cost-effective technology, and there's not much reason not to (continue to) go there. We can hope for ultracaps -- there are numerous signs of progress, but they're just not there yet -- but batteries will certainly do for now.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So it turns out clean running efficient diesel was a fucking scam all along. Thank fucking god. Slashdot wank echo box would not shut the fuck up about diesel. "Why go electric or get a hybrid? That kills babies! Get this wonderful free market superman diesel that the evil gubmint wont let you own!"
Seriously. The mental fucking gymnastics one has to go through to believe burning a low grade dirty fuel is better than gas.
Turns out it's pure marketing wank. Much like clean coal.
To be fair, European-market Volkswagens tend to be built a lot better than their North-American market counterparts. VW is the market leader in Europe and older cars from VW and their sister brands are very common here. They are generally considerd to be among the most reliable and durable brands and they depreciate very slowly because of this reputation. That being said, VW has had their share of problems and I would definitely avoid some models from the 2008-2012 period.
VW has always had trouble in North America, it seems. Americans are prepared to pay less for a new car and have very different preferences. VW has had trouble adjusting models to North-American tastes and requirements without losing too much of the original appeal of the car, but also with local production quality and continuity. However, German built cars are simply too expensive for the market segment they operate in.
I salute VW for doing what it could to subvert Leviathan Government's onerous regulations. Carry on, I say.
Are you stupid, or what?
VW still tries to ride the coat tails of the old 1980's perception that German engineering is somehow superior. Haven't you ever looked at the Consumer Reports ratings of VW's? Those things are horrible pieces of shit.
And then, to top it off, the company goes and pull this emissions shit, and you reward them by purchasing their product?
Hey, it's your money, but I can assure you that even if they started producing a car that lived up to this over-hyped German engineered quality, I will never trust the company to buy one. Ever.
My guess is that all the carmakers are involved (more here: http://geekcrumbs.com/2015/10/...). Wouldn't it be ironic if they all ended up guilty, and that was what finally provoked a massive shift to electric?
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
So many debunked zombie lies in one post... Why do right wing denier trolls keep repeating this over and over, and why are people so stupid to believe it?
*Electricity is generated on my roof using my solar panels. It travels 25 feet to my EVSE with next to 0 transmission line loss.
*Recycling batteries works, and is much easier than mining and creating new ones.
*The pollution from generating a gallon of gas and putting it into your tank is worse than the electric pollution. Let alone the air pollution that ICE cars generate.
You seem to be quite sure of this... I would question as to why?
Several reasons.
1) PHEVs require minimal to no infrastructure investment to be viable. No other alternative can make that claim.
2) Fuel economy standards. PHEVs are a proven solution to the problem and the solution with the least compromise of performance.
3) Prices of batteries continues to fall and performance continues to rise. As that happens the the price of hybrid vehicles will continue to improve.
4) Performance and luxury cars already are beginning the conversion to hybrid. (See McClaren, Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Lamborghini, etc)
5) Internal combustion engines aren't going to get much better than they already are. We are well into diminishing returns on their performance.
6) There are basically no other market-ready alternatives to improve performance. Not hydrogen, not natural gas, not pure-electric. Not yet.
Well, they DO get a lot of press... but sales? Plug in EVs of all types were less than 1% of the total light car and truck sales in the US in 2014 (it was 0.7% to be exact).
Find me another alternative fuel vehicle type that has even close to the market uptake that hybrids have. Hybrids are still relatively pricey so it's not surprising that they will take some time to gather market share but they ARE gaining market share. And they are selling. In Japan the Toyota Prius is currently the #2 selling vehicle and has been near the top for years. They're not going to take over the market tomorrow but they will become very commonplace over the next 10-15 years.
That is a rounding error, not the "coming replacement of ICE cars".
That's like saying in 1978 that personal computers are a rounding error in computer sales. It's true but it misses the point of what will happen next. Hybrids are still new and fairly expensive. But car companies will HAVE to start pushing hybrids or they will have to greatly lower the power of the vehicles they sell to meet fuel economy standards. I think the former is far more likely than the later. There is no other market ready alternative available to them. You're particularly going to see hybrids becoming standard equipment on luxury cars first and then working down the food chain into mass market cars as costs fall. It will take some years but I don't see any credible scenario where hybrids don't grab big market share.
To be fair, European-market Volkswagens tend to be built a lot better than their North-American market counterparts.
I've owned plenty of VWs that were built in Europe and I stand by my statement that their reliability isn't good. I don't think the boat ride reduces reliability so I'm unconvinced that VWs quality problems are anything but engineering and occasionally build defects in most cases. I've seen no evidence that VWs built on this side of the pond are less reliable than those build in Germany. Honda and Toyota and BMW and others manage to build very reliable cars here in North America so VW doesn't have any excuse.
They are generally considerd to be among the most reliable and durable brands and they depreciate very slowly because of this reputation.
I have never seen a single quality survey in the last 20 years where VW was not near the bottom of the heap. Durable I would agree with from personal experience. Reliable? No way. The data simply doesn't support that assertion.
Americans are prepared to pay less for a new car and have very different preferences.
VW overcharges for their vehicles. Why would I pay more for a vehicle from a company with a deservedly bad reputation for reliability? The Jetta is a decent enough car but it's not better than a half a dozen of its competitors. If VW cannot be bothered to listen to local preferences and cannot fix the reliability issues then it should surprise no one that their sales aren't going to be amazing.
VW has had trouble adjusting models to North-American tastes and requirements without losing too much of the original appeal of the car, but also with local production quality and continuity.
True but that's just arrogance on their part. I've owned a lot of VWs over the years and some of their design decisions are baffling. Other manufacturers manage the trick so what's VW's excuse?
My goodness VW. You got caught cheating, mad people are still mad... now just stop talking for a while. Nothing you say is going to be seen positively in the near future.
X
Tests conducted by VW showed that their electric cars actually have negative emissions, leaving the air cleaner than it was before they drove through.
All your fossil fuel vehicles are belong to the 20th Century.
Wake up, it's the 21st.
Adapt or die.
Nobody cares about your excuses.
Batteries are cheap, solar is cheaper than coal, wind is cheap, stop whining grandpa!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Don't try to tell that to my German relatives.
One thing we always have to talk about, how terrible new VWs are, there or here.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You must not have been looking at the same quality surveys then.. 6 out of the top 10 car models in this satisfaction survey from last year are VW or one of its brands (Skoda):
You right I wasn't. I was looking at ones that measure RELIABILITY like this which have VW firmly in the bottom half. Same deal with Consumer Reports and plenty of others. The survey you cited measures customer satisfaction, not reliability. Very different. (Plus how do you get 6 of the top 10 and still not manage to be the top brand?)
the issue with hydrogen is compressing and cooling a tank to keep hydrogen liquid is very heavy, that is why storing hydrogen in Magnesium hydride is attractive,
Magnisium hydride is just 8% hydrogen by mass. You have to tote around a huge amount of heavy magnesium so you lose whatever advantage in specific energy you had with hydrogen. No, that will most certainly NOT be the solution because it isn't any better than existing batteries.
If you had all those problems with that brand, an expensive and extensive problem spanning multiple vehicles, then why did you keep buying that brand? I'm not sure we should accept your reasoning as you're clearly telling us that you're unreasonable. I do own a sort-of-rare VW. I have what is known as a Quantum 5 wagon and it's fun but I don't take it out as much as I should. I don't think it has been on the road in the past year. I kind of feel sorry for it - it needs to be driven.
The only issue I had was brakes, rear, and the parts were in short supply so it took some time for my mechanic to get it resolved.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
In other words, they'll actually do what they're required by law to do, but vehicle prices will jump significantly.
That's the stupidest thing I've read today. The diesel VW's already have the requisite hardware to pass the emissions tests, thus they're actually being able to pass the emissions tests. No hardware change is required to make them compliant when out on the open road as well, it's just a software update.
is rather "known" in German auto industry for having cars that perform on par (e.g. VW Sharan vs Ford S-Max) yet are regarded as way better cars by many journalists "for some reason".
Have a drive both in a 20 year old VW and in a 20 year old Ford (if you can find one) and you will know the reason. Of course, this mostly says something about the cars VW and Ford made twenty years ago, but people tend to extrapolate past experience into the present.
They should open source their programs.
Virtually no one drives a car anything approaching 700 miles in a day.
Has nothing to do with driving 700 miles in a day. It has to do with time required to refuel. The longer it takes to refuel the longer the range on electric vehicles will have to be to make them practical for long distance travel. Don't get too wrapped up in the exact numbers - those are just guesses anyway. If it takes 2 hours to recharge your car, you're not going to want to do that daily if you are away from home. It's too inconvenient. If it is just 15 minutes your range can be less because the drive time to refuel time ratio is smaller. So you'll want enough range that you don't have to worry about it. Maybe that number is 500, maybe it is 800. Doesn't really matter. We're already seeing early prototypes of commercial EVs with over 400 mile ranges and Tesla has been talking about ranges long and more than that in the not distant future.
If you had all those problems with that brand, an expensive and extensive problem spanning multiple vehicles, then why did you keep buying that brand?
I didn't. The vehicles were mostly hand me down vehicles (or family deals) from family members who were VW enthusiasts. (my father particularly) I didn't have enough money at the time to be especially choosy. And to be fair they were generally pretty good vehicles aside from spending more time in the shop than I prefer. I have particularly fond memories of my 85 Scirocco which was a pretty fun car to drive. Of course once I had enough money to buy my own vehicles I haven't touched a VW since. My recent purchases were Honda, Nissan, Mercedes, Saturn, Ford. The only VWs that piqued my interest at all were (ironically) the diesels and that was mostly for the engine rather than the rest of the car.
I do own a sort-of-rare VW. I have what is known as a Quantum 5 wagon and it's fun but I don't take it out as much as I should
That's just another badge for an early version of the second gen Passat. Was badged the Quantum in North America but it was a Passat or a Santana in other markets. I kept my Scirocco far longer than I should have for similar reasons. Eventually the brakes froze like they will with any vehicles that sits too long and I sold it.
A company agreeing to pay fines without excessive legal wrangling would be nice to see for once. It makes the admission of guilt slightly more credible.