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Volkswagen To Build Electric Versions of All 300 Models By 2030 (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller announced sweeping plans to build electric versions of all 300 models in the group's lineup as the world's largest automaker accelerates the shift away from combustion engines and tries to draw a line under the emissions-cheating scandal. Speaking on the eve of the Frankfurt auto show, the CEO laid out the enormity of the task ahead, vowing to spend 20 billion euros ($24 billion) to develop and bring the models to market by 2030 and promising to plow another 50 billion euros into the batteries needed to power the cars. Volkswagen is throwing the fire power of its 12 brands behind the push, aiming to catch up with the likes of Tesla Inc. and transform from a battery-vehicle laggard into a leader. Underscoring the enormity of the shift taking place in the industry, Mueller said VW will need the equivalent of at least four gigafactories for battery cells by 2025 just to meet its own vehicle production. At 50 billion euros, the CEO announced one of the largest tenders in the industry's history for the procurement of batteries. By 2025, VW aims to have 50 purely battery-powered vehicles and 30 hybrid models in its lineup, with a goal of selling as many as 3 million purely battery-powered cars by then. The transformation will pick up speed after that to reach the 2030 goal as economies of scale and better infrastructure help bring down prices and accelerate sales.
BMW's been milking the same systems data bus since... at least 1994 when they designed the E39 (5 series). It's been so successful they managed to add on GPS, navigation etc to it when all it was supposed to do was anti lock brakes and 6 CD changers. That system bus (down to the connectors) are present now in modern land rovers, making a 2017 land rover navigation unit compatible with a 1995 BMW 5 series.
When you design something for a ton of passenger cars, usually you want to design common systems to cut down on parts; in the late 90s-mid-2000s VW group cars (VW and Audi in particular) had awful window motors that failed all the time due to shared parts. The pontiac solstice sports car was basically assembled out of random parts from the GM parts bin and was even advertised as such.
I would imagine that if you're going to do EVs big, you will need some sort of modern systems bus that handles navigation, self driving CPU + sensors, battery charging, cooling, voltage etc etc, yes there will be a gas or diesel engine in a lot of these but effectively you're designing a shared platform for the next generation of cars; when you have 300 models (or likely sub-models) the more common parts you can use the better your cost savings.
Sheet metal, cars typically get a total redesign every 5-7 years. The mechanics are somewhat easy to retool for, and already budgeted for, but it's all the self-driving sensors, AI, CPU, charging wiring etc that needs to have a solid foundation so that they can make that big step forward and have many many interchangeable parts.
moox. for a new generation.
And yet you're missing the biggest actual reason all of these manufacturers are eyeing electric. Hint: it's not global warming. They want to get in on power sources which specifically do not release pollutants because pollution from exhaust pipes is becoming a major issue in just about every large European and Asian city. Synthetic fuels would change fuck all to that, so nobody's investing in it. If you're not going electric, your only other real option is hydrogen, but that's got even more problems.
As a general rule, if you, average Slashdotter, think you've figured out something nobody in the entire world has, you're probably just missing something.
"what do the HECK do they have *300 models* for?!?!?!?!
Volkswagen Auto Group is one of the largest vehicle manufacturing companies on the planet.
Between VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, MAN, and Scania, plus world-wide distribution of different models, 300 seems on the low side.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Even the very concept is broken. If you want an electric vehicle to be good (and competitive), you don't "electrify" a vehicle designed for an internal combustion engine. You end up needlessly poor aero drag (having the shape designed around containing an ICE), high center of gravity (batteries are best kept as a base "skateboard" at the bottom of the vehicle) and thus poorer handling/safety, poor packing density (little range and/or awkward shaped / hard to manufacture packs), and a bunch of other issues.
EVs should be designed from the start as EVs. Battery at the bottom, everything else sitting atop it, and a shape having nothing to do with the constraints of ICEs. Motors located inline with the wheels that they drive - ideally 2 motors if you can afford it for AWD, otherwise FWD or RWD as per consumer preference (generally RWD). Etc. By the way, the reason that you really want two motors (beyond gaining the benefits of AWD without having to add a heavy front-rear linkage) is that you can gear them differently. This lets you "sleep" the motor that's operating outside of its ideal power band during normal operation (instantly waking it when you need more torque or traction), which means greater efficiency, and thus range. It also lets you combine both high acceleration at low speeds and at higher speeds (with a higher top speed) rather than having to pick.
"Casual hello, it's me, Zoidberg, act naturally."
That's basically how Teslas are built. Model S and X are built on the same skateboard. Model 3 and Y are built on the same skateboard, smaller than the MX/MY one. The two skateboard designs are very similar, although the M3/MY skateboard is updated based on the latest technology and "lessons learned" in the MS/MX line.
As a random example: M3/MY have no battery pack heater. Tesla has always been great with heat management (shunting heat to/from the drive unit(s), battery pack, cabin, compressor, and radiators so that whatever needs more heat gets it and whatever loses it). With the new design, rather than having a dedicated heater, they deliberately run the motor(s) inefficiently (when at a standstill, with 0% efficiency), wasting all energy as resistive heating in the stator which is captured and shunted to the pack. It costs them nothing extra to do this (since the waveforms created by the IGBTs in the inverter are fully customizeable) but eliminates another part (the pack heater) to manufacture, install, and which could potentially break.
"Casual hello, it's me, Zoidberg, act naturally."
I don't know who this VW joker is, but he probably didn't work his way up from the engineering shop.
Matthias Müller started out as an apprentice tool and die maker at Audi and then studied engineering at Munich University of Applied Sciences. After that, he got a job in the product planning at Audi and gradually worked his way up to become the manager in charge of product planning. After that, he subsequently became coordinator of sports brands for the VW Group, CEO of Porsche and, after the resignation of prof. dr. Martin Winterkorn in 2015, CEO of the VW Group.
However, please don't get readily available facts get in the way of your presumptions.