VW Says the Next Generation of Combustion Cars Will Be Its Last (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Volkswagen AG expects the era of the combustion car to fade away after it rolls out its next-generation gasoline and diesel cars beginning in 2026. "Our colleagues are working on the last platform for vehicles that aren't CO2 neutral," Michael Jost, strategy chief for Volkswagen's namesake brand, said Tuesday at an industry conference near the company's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. "We're gradually fading out combustion engines to the absolute minimum."

The world's largest automaker has started to introduce its first wave of electric cars, including next year's Porsche Taycan. The rollout across its stable of 12 automotive brands is forecast to comprise about 15 million vehicles, as the company earmarks $50 billion over the next five years to spend on its transformation to self-driving, electric cars. Production of the VW brand's I.D. Neo hatchback will start in 12 months in Germany, followed by other models from the I.D. line assembled at two sites in China as of 2020. VW plans to launch fully or partly electric versions across its lineup of more than 300 cars, vans, trucks and motorbikes by 2030. The company "will continue to modify its combustion engine technology after the new platform is introduced next decade," reports Bloomberg. "After 2050, there may still be some gasoline and diesel models in regions where there is insufficient charging infrastructure, according to Jost."

Comments

Interesting, "combustion cars"

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

VW always muddied the waters by using the term "electrified cars" to club together hybrids and pure electric cars. But it is now interesting it uses the term "combustion cars" and "carbon neutral". I hope they are not excluding hybrids from the "combustion cars" category.

It is inevitable. The battery prices have been falling and have reached a tipping point. The battery pack cost estimate varies from 120 $/kWh to 150 $/kWh. (Battery cell prices range between 100 $./kWh to 130 $/kWh). The general consensus is when the battery pack costs 100 $/kWh the cost of electric power train (battery + motor + charger) will equal the cost of ICE power train (engine + transmission + emission control + gas tank). At that point BEV and ICEV will sell at the same price. BEV will cost three to five times less [FN1] compared to ICEV. At that point transition to BEV will be rapid.

People who have never driven BEV are misled by the lack of visible charging infrastructure compared to gas stations. Tesla super chargers few and far between. What they don't realize is every home, every electrical outlet is a gas station. Charging time does not matter. Cars sit idle all night long, enough time to charge. In fact BEV people feel ICEV fueling takes too much time, having to stop by at the gas station every week or so.

Also cars are the second most expensive thing bought by home owners, and the single most expensive thing bought by renters. When they see a big flux coming, things are unsettled, they post pone the decision to buy the next car. It will hurt ICEV companies a lot more than BEV companies.

But vehicles are just the beginning. There is no new breakthrough needed in batteries. The breakthrough needed is in manufacturing, industrial engineering, assembly lines for batteries, volume production, etc, all are known issues with known solutions. We know how to do this, we are just struggling to figure out how to finance this. When battery packs cost 80 $/kWh in 2022 all vehicles, from 18 wheelers to earth movers to train locomotives will run on batteries. Oil demand falling by 50% creating a glut and gasoline price falling to 1 $/gallon .. even that will not stem the tide. ICEV will be more expensive than battery. At 60 $/kWh we can store three days worth of electricity used by the entire grid in batteries. Solar and Wind will be enough and all the coal/gas/oil fired powerplants will go bust.

My friend works in a salt mine that ordered a 130 million dollar HVAC system because they are using diesel earth movers deep in the mine's confined spaces. In today's prices, you can buy 1 GWh of batteries, keep thm on 16 hour charge, 8 hour duty cycle, and run 40 earth movers, each using 500 HP motor operating 24/7. Only problem is 1 GWh of batteries is 2.5% of the world's battery making capacity! Look at the demand, look at the potential, the tipping point has been reached already. It is just a matter of ramping up the production volumes!

[FN1] BEV, Tesla model 3, 75 kWh for 310 miles, 1 kWh = 12 cents, 2.9 cents/mile. Compare to 250 HP BMW X3 25 mpg, 3 $/gal, 12 cents. Ratio = 4.1, plug in your numbers, ratio can down to 2.5 or go up to 6.