Volkswagen seeks to counter rivals with budget EV model

However good this thing is otherwise, "ID Everyone" is a horrible slogan for a new car. I wouldn't mind some manufacturer agreeing to not buy/sell your sexual history, creating radios which aren't vulnerable to remote controlling the car via buffer overflows, and otherwise treating cars like physical goods you own and can rely opon instead of hooks into your personal life.

Their marketing people have been detoxing from their cocaine binges recently, so the air is out

https://apnews.com/article/china-volkswagen-executive-deport...

From the borders to the polls to the security office, ID Everyone is for you!

The significant part of that story is there's no claim he used cocaine or recreational drugs "on the job" in China ...

  A senior executive for Volkswagen in China has been deported for allegedly using cocaine and marijuana while on vacation in Thailand, according to Chinese authorities and German media reports.

  Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper [..] reported he tested positive for drug use after returning from a holiday in Thailand.

  Drug use is an administrative offense in China punishable by a 10- to 15-day detention and a fine of up to 2,000 yuan ($280).

  Thailand legalized marijuana in 2022 but Chinese authorities have warned that use of the drug overseas is equivalent to using it at home and subject to the same penalties.

I might be too old but I still don’t understand why carmakers have to do electric vehicles weirder than gas vehicles in every sense, weirder lines, weirder lights, weirder names, weirder interiors.

Not saying is bad, just saying.

Yeah they could just call it the Golf EV and be done with it

I guess it makes the car harder to compare.

If you have a Golf vs E-Golf, you will compare everything from range, weight,...

They want attention for sales from a younger demographic. That is because old people are too set in their ways to be willing to buy newer models and getting the young to adopt it will eventually produce a new generation of old people who will only buy it. That is how Toyota killed the Avalon. They chased after young people by making the car weirder and weirder, and then the people who actually wanted it could not stand to look at it anymore.

That is my personal opinion that is the result of a small sample set of observations.

There is already an e-Golf, seems like a pretty reasonable car, no idea on the price/range, etc. A friend had one, was nice.

You kid but the median four doors and a hatch appliance car buyer (EV or otherwise) is probably some accountant or school teacher who actually believes that sort of if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear type stuff.

They don't. A BYD Seal or BYD Dolphin or a Sealion 7 look like 'normal' cars inside and out.

In what way does the Avalon look weird? It looks like a typical car to me. If you want weird look at Citroen cars.

All glory to arstotzka!

EVs have less inherent character than internal combustion cars. They're all quiet and refined, with stable handling thanks to a low centre of gravity. Most of them offer far more performance than any normal person needs. A small electric city car doesn't feel all that different to a large electric sedan, it's just smaller. That's an existential threat for legacy auto manufacturers, because it offers fewer points of differentiation against much cheaper Chinese brands.

EVs are less constrained in terms of packaging. The battery and all the working parts are stashed down in the floor, so you can do whatever you like from the wheels up, without having to worry about where you're going to fit the engine or transmission or gas tank.

Some manufacturers are making EVs that look just like their gasoline-powered equivalents, but there's a real possibility that they're headed down a blind alley. I think that manufacturers who fully embrace the design freedoms of EVs and find new ways of creating distinctive experiences will stand a much better chance of surviving the next decade. Weird doesn't mean good, but bland is just a concession of defeat.

Gas car design is in large part constrained by aerodynamics and safety. the engine takes up some space that a battery would not need but that hood is there anyway.

Going to Thailand for weekend parties is a big thing in the China white dude expat scene.

It's also a fun stop for Australians that like gun ranges with automatic weapons but can't or won't get a gun licence at home. Australia doesn't jail them for gunpowder residue on their hands when they return though.

That said, I have less sympathy for Jochen Sengpiehl here, he's reportedly the chief marketing bigwig responsible for

  Volkswagen has apologized for posting a racist video promoting its new Golf 8 [ ..that..] showed an outsized white hand pushing a black man away from a parked VW Golf, before flicking him into a restaurant called Petit Colon, which translates from French as the Little Colonist or Little Settler.

Nazi founded car company does what! now?

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/business/volkswagen-racis...

( according to https://www.campaignasia.com/article/volkswagen-china-cmo-de...)

My problem is the exact opposite - they don't really explore the possibilites of a fully free form design, and the weirdness is always on the surface level.

For example, I'd love to get a car which doubles as a mobile work pod, where I could drive to a foresty car park, set up a hotspot, run the A/C, plug in my computer and do my days work from there.

But despite all the bells and whistles, interior layout is still very conservative.

Well, I was looking at cars passing by while waiting for a bus and new ICE cars don't look normal either today. The bodywork is too busy for my taste, they resemble toys rather than utilitarian vehicles.

It's likely that the production car will be called ID.1.

So, VW had the eGolf and the eUp. They looked so similar to their petrol siblings that most people ended up thinking that the id.3/4 was VW's first electric car. Meanwhile, everyone knew about, say, the BMW i3 and the Nissan Leaf and the gratuitously weird Hyundai Iconiqs.

At least slightly weird-looking electric cars seems to be what the market _wants_.

It's dead; the id.3 was the replacement. Priced similarly to the id.3, but it didn't sell well compared to other comparable EVs AIUI. My theory is that at least a decent subset of people who want to buy an EV want an EV which looks like an EV, ie weird. Hence the id.3, which is _vastly_ more successful than the eGolf.

Oh, I didn't realize they killed it. I like the golf...

Electric vanagon? Or the ID.Buzz might work.

https://soymotor.com/sites/default/files/usuarios/redaccion/...

While the idea is good, I do have to call out the Buzz as a herald of a worrying trend in van design (that's not exclusive to EVs) - building vans on top of standard road car platforms instead.

This results in longer vehicles, with lesser proportion of useful space, the packaging being worse than some ICE vans (and much worse than the original VW Bus).

This is to save engineering and manufacturing costs, which is kinda a bad thing to do when your vehicle retails for this much.