Herbert Diess, Volkswagen‘s chief executive, addressed investors Monday to announce that the company’s new ID.3 electric vehicle will be 40 percent cheaper to build than the e-Golf. Concentrating on using the battery platform to also handle structural rigidity accounts for much of the savings. The electric Golf was a conversion of an internal combustion engine version of the Golf that wasn’t optimized for an electric powertrain.
“If you focus on an electric platform, all in all, it accounts for a 40% reduction against the predecessor electric Golf,” Diess said, “most of it from cells and the battery system.”
Reducing production costs is key to Volkswagen’s plan to shift production from combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles without investors having to worry about reductions in the company’s profits.
Production on the ID.3 started at VW’s Zwickau plant on November 4, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in attendance to mark the beginning of the automaker’s effort to sell 22 million electric vehicles worldwide by 2028. The Zwickau plant was converted from a combustion engine plant to strictly electric vehicle production. Diess says that dedicating the plant solely to EV production saves another 5 to 10% on costs.
All these savings, along with the refitting of manufacturing plants, is aimed at getting an ID.3 into your garage for about $33,000. Eventually, VW is looking to be able to offer an all-electric car for $22.500.
The ID.3 will soon be available in Europe, with a crossover SUV version coming to the United States not too long after. The electric motor in the ID.3 produces an equivalent of 200 horsepower through a rear-wheel drive system, with all-wheel drive coming soon. The body design will help give it a range of up to 341 miles on a single charge, depending on the power options you choose.
Another milestone in the VW ramp-up of electric mobility is the fall 2020 opening of the Dresden Gläserne Manufaktur, which VW says will become a Center of Future Mobility where innovative technologies are developed and tested in collaboration with industry partners and startups. The VW Group plans to launch up to 75 all-electric models and some 60 hybrid vehicles into the marketplace through 2029.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.