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Volkswagen seeks to counter rivals with budget EV model

(www.ttnews.com)
144 points herbertl | 1 comments | 06 Mar 25 00:36 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mixedCase ◴[06 Mar 25 01:14 UTC] No.43275007[source]▶
That's way too expensive for an "affordable EV".

The BYD Seagull retails here in Uruguay for less than that and we tax cars at about 100%. On China it seems to go for 10-12k.

It's a proper, basic city car. 4 to 6 air bags, ~300km range (more than what this article's car indicates), all basic security features and standard gadgets out of a modern car.

Our EV infrastructure is not viable if you don't have a charger at work/home and yet these have sold like hot cakes.

Legacy carmakers are making increasingly worse ICE cars for the most part (btw does GM sell a C-segment hatchback on any market, anymore?) and their EVs are simply uncompetitive. What's it going to take for them to wake up to the fact they're going to have to stop fleecing their customers with crappy products? Bankruptcy?

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taeric ◴[06 Mar 25 01:55 UTC] No.43275373[source]▶
I mean, I'd expect it to be more than a gas car? No? This price would be appealing to me if on the market right now.
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SoftTalker ◴[06 Mar 25 03:52 UTC] No.43276222[source]▶
Why? We’re told they are mechanically much simpler. Electric motor. No transmission. Why do they cost more?
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taeric ◴[06 Mar 25 04:23 UTC] No.43276412[source]▶
Mechanics, sure. Chemically, not so much. The batteries are rather non trivial.
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dalyons ◴[06 Mar 25 04:56 UTC] No.43276564[source]▶
How so? Batteries are simple and amenable to massive economies of scale that ice engines are not
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taeric ◴[06 Mar 25 15:06 UTC] No.43281064[source]▶
I'm curious why you think batteries that can run a car are simple? Literally new technology, no?
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dalyons ◴[07 Mar 25 17:02 UTC] No.43291865[source]▶
They’re complicated and hard to develop initially, but are fundamentally physically and mechanically simple and thus simple to manufacture cheap at scale. Whereas ICE engines are developed tech but are intrinsically complicated to build. If that makes sense
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1. taeric ◴[10 Mar 25 21:08 UTC] No.43326121{3}[source]▶
It somewhat makes sense, but they are very much not chemically simple? Nor are any of the electronics that are required for safe charging and use simple. That they have simple packaging is largely a distraction from how complicated they are. Just as you wouldn't claim computers are simple just because a chunk of silicon is simple.