VW Neo (eGolf replacement)

Mike9832

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Of all the car manufacturers in the World the only one with a clear plan is VW. We could be all sitting here this time next year talking about the Model 3 and still no sign of it ever hitting a tesla store in Ireland.

VW the saviour of the electric car, my god the **** you talk

Model 3 will be in Europe, in volume pretty soon

The lack of love for Tesla here is shocking

The only ones with a plan and producing long range EV’s in volume

VW have no batteries, that's nothing changing anytime soon, they have nothing.

Show me the factories building all these VW electric cars

You can't because they don't exist

LG upped the price on the batteries for the Audi EV coming soon

Someone that's getting a 50 billion battery contact wouldn't be acting like that

KCross

Shefwedfan wrote: »

I think everyone can agree if you wave 48 billion in front of a battery manufacturer they will suddenly be able to ramp up....

I dont think we need to go back over "we dont know what period that is over", standard contracts are 3-5 years so let take a good stab that its 5 years. That's 10 billion a year in batteries.



No matter what you much you use Tesla as a reference they haven't got anything close to that sort of money.

You made those time periods up just as you were writing the post!

You dont get that volume of battery plant up and running in 3yrs.... you clearly havent been paying attention to cros13's posts.

I'll leave you to it Shef, as it isnt a battery manufacturing thread anyway so I've derailed it enough.


Have you anything new to tell us about the Neo?

Shefwedfan

KCross wrote: »

You dont think Tesla have a clear plan?
Seems clear enough to me and they are delivering, what, 7000 a week across all models and increasing each quarter.

You can rightfully argue they dont deliver on the timelines they put out but they do still deliver EV's on the road in significant volume and thats from a startup, not the biggest manufacturer in the world

VW is still 2-3yrs away from hitting those volumes.

But credit where credit is due, they are publicly saying they will deliver it and I'm all for that. I just wish they would be more honest with their marketing. I guess I'm just a bit more cynical than you because of how they handled dieselgate.

I'll let more of your VW loving posts flow over me from now on!

Tesla are selling a car into a market that buy SUV. The Model X is too expensive and the other SUV is .. no idea....cant even find its name....not really a great plan. Once you look past the PR machine it's a bit all over the shop.....

7000 per week? one week and then it fell back again. They cannot sustain large scale manufacturing.....God help the person who's car got "manufacturered" that week.....build quality I would suggest would be questionable

Zwickau which is the first plant to get converted will be able to fire out 1500 per day in 2020. VW spending 1.2 billion training now. Somehow I think the Germans will hit their targets.



Tesla is hardly a new company, they are talking about the Model 3 since 2008. That's 10 years. Some of the chinese companies that are up and running now, they are new


You keep saying about more honest with their marketing? I am not sure what you mean? yes we all know about dieselgate but every single manufacturer was up to the same crack, they just didn't push diesel into the US like VW did.....so which bit is dishonest?



Just to note, if both the Model 3 and the Neo because available at the same time I would test both of them and I would buy the best one.....

I just have a feeling I will be testing the Neo and when I arrive at Tesla they will start talking about 2021/22

KCross

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Just to note, if both the Model 3 and the Neo because available at the same time I would test both of them and I would buy the best one.....

We both know thats not true!

If the Neo was made out of paperclips and duracell batteries you'd buy it!


So, anyway, anything interesting to tell us about the Neo?
When will the RHD be available?

Shefwedfan

KCross wrote: »

We both know thats not true!

If the Neo was made out of paperclips and duracell batteries you'd buy it!


So, anyway, anything interesting to tell us about the Neo?
When will the RHD be available?

I would buy the best one. I like a VW, I like an Audi better but I have had a long history of most types of cars on the market.

I never really liked a Ford but I have actually owned 4 in my life including the current Galaxy....

If the Model 3 is better and available I will buy. Or if Nissan got in front of eveyrone with a 60kWh Qashqai I would buy that.

RHD/LHD for VW doesn't seem to make a difference. The UK is one of it largest market so I expect it to arrive at the same time. I have never heard of VW launching a car and it not been available to RHD customers. Their plants already cater for this requirements.....


Anything else of interest, read back over the thread thats the latest and greatest....

daheff

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Or if Nissan got in front of eveyrone with a 60kWh Qashqai I would buy that.

don't hold your breath.

liamog

I'm not sure why everyone suddenly think that vertical integration is the answer to building cars.

Tesla are an energy storage company that sells cars, make sense for them to be in the battery business.
Hyundai is the second largest steel producer in the world.
Nissan and VW are automakers. I don't really see why automakers should compete in the battery business against large electrionic companies such as Samsung, LG and the chinese players.

KCross

liamog wrote: »

I'm not sure why everyone suddenly think that vertical integration is the answer to building cars.

Tesla are an energy storage company that sells cars, make sense for them to be in the battery business.
Hyundai is the second largest steel producer in the world.
Nissan and VW are automakers. I don't really see why automakers should compete in the battery business against large electrionic companies such as Samsung, LG and the chinese players.

Not vertical integration per se but dedicated supply, like Tesla. Tesla dont make batteries. Panasonic do and Tesla fund it under its roof as a partnership.

I believe VW are going this direction now as well. Its not just a case of signing a contract to deliver XGWh of batteries. They need their own dedicated plant.

Its a key component of the car, its in short supply, its expensive to buy and ramping up takes a long time. Something as critical as the battery cannot be left to the open market if you really want to succeed in volume. You have to secure supply.

liamog

KCross wrote: »

Not vertical integration per se but dedicated supply, like Tesla. Tesla dont make batteries. Panasonic do and Tesla fund it under its roof as a partnership.

I believe VW are going this direction now as well. Its not just a case of signing a contract to deliver XGWh of batteries. They need their own dedicated plant.

Its a key component of the car, its in short supply, its expensive to buy and ramping up takes a long time. Something as critical as the battery cannot be left to the open market if you really want to succeed in volume. You have to secure supply.

A substantial part of the expansion in LG Chem Wroclaw was dedicated for VW's European I.D. plans. That's about 60km closer to their Zwickau plant than the Gigafactory is to Fremont. The only real difference is that VW don't own the land in Wroclaw. You might say a €48 billion long term contract goes a long way to securing that supply.

Shefwedfan

Money talks and VW have plenty of it.

After dieselgate as I mentioned before they had no option but to clean up their act or they could have slowly lost market share. It just happened at the same time that both the US and China had a push on electric cars.....

Fairly simple, get back into the US market and open the China market by building electric cars. Tesla, would they even come into the discussion, this was decided in 2016 and Tesla shipped 84k cars for the whole year. VW delivered 10 million in that year alone. So in 4 days VW sold more cars than Tesla did in the whole year.......I think they would be more interested in what Toyota/Merc/Etc was up to

This is more or less a make or break, without the amount of money they have invested they need electric to work. I doubt they have invested all this money, including over a billion just on training staff, if they had no plans to push electric cars to the market. Why would they bother? its a fairly big spin to waste billion on something you have no interest in.....also why bother developing MEB at the cost of billions if they have no batteries. This was cleared by a board of Directors and shareholders. I am sure at some stage someone stood up and asked the question "where is the batteries coming from" :-)

VW have announced a lot of information but they are hardly going to announce the exact details of every transaction. For all you know they could be partnering with Tesla.....money talks and I doubt Tesla would turn down a few billion if VW knocked on door. Tesla of course was partnering with Merc before and sold components to them, also said they are willing to flog off access to their charger network....so hardly shy of taking a few quid to keep the doors open

KCross

I've repeatedly said they will deliver significant numbers of EV's in the coming years. I never said the spin equated to complete BS and we'll never see the Neo.... you're putting words in my mouth now.

Lets move on Shef.

Shefwedfan

KCross wrote: »

I've repeatedly said they will deliver significant numbers of EV's in the coming years. I never said the spin equated to complete BS and we'll never see the Neo.... you're putting words in my mouth now.

Lets move on Shef.

I don't understand :P


Anyway till next time

Mike9832

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Money talks and VW have plenty of it.

Money

They all have money, especially Renault group, Toyota, Hyundai etc

Read below from a stock investor on the question of multi billion dollar battery contract from VW

Your really downplaying how long this would actually take.

Tesla are years ahead in battery production

For VW partner LG Chem to make these expansions to produce €50 billion worth of cells alot needs to happen, its not just flicking a switch and its done.


For a start where are all the raw materials for the battery going to come from? 

Lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese etc.

Most of the major lithium mines that are under construction/producing are already sold out of product, despite the controversial headlines touting oversupply, to Chinese/Japanese or Korean partners. 

It takes a long time to build a brine mining operation, Galaxy resources in Australia have one of the better ones which is located in Argentina IIRC. They have had this project form maybe 2 or more years now already and have only in the last few months completed studies showing the financial projections and viability of moving forward with the mine. They need to get all the mining/environmental permits in order before construction/extraction can take place. They need to carry out metallurgical test works and feed that into the engineering design to come up with the best design for the plant. 

When all the above has been completed next they need to find financing to build this mine so in the quoted example LG Chem would have to put up money if they want to secure supply from this mine. Say a $100-200M prepayment or equity for cash transfer. They would likely need a few partners to get full amount needed (they should also have a nice cash option internally by selling half of the brine tenements) so all those deals would have to be ongoing or completed while construction starts. I have yet to see a brine project that has reached the output that has been promised.

All in all from start to finish your talking minimum five years for a brine operation but likely 7 years + by the time the operation has reached the nameplate or as close as they can to nameplate.


In regards to a hard rock lithium miner which is becoming the mine of choice if you take Pilbara Minerals in Australia your talking approx 4 years to get to the point of production and then anywhere from 6-12 months to ramp up to nameplate. This is usually a best case scenario as Pilbara and some others were in the right place at the right time and lithium sentiment was positive spot they were able to get financed, lithium sentiment is negative right now through misleading reports and its hard for these new mines to get finance. Tawana Resources being the standout in this regard took less than 18 months for various reasons that I wont go into. 

Pilbara minerals if things go to plan will be a top 3 lithium producer by 2022 and they are already fully sold out of lithium for those planned expansion plans. So what im trying to say is if LG Chem/VW or any other player actually wanted to produce that many batteries/EVs then they would need to wait until a new mine got built to supply them with lithium, need to lock in all the other raw materials, need to build the processing plants to allow the conversion of the raw materials to battery grade and they would have to build a big gigafactory or two. This would take at least 5 years. 

In five years time Tesla will at least have integrated GF and manufacturing plant in China if not one in Europe aswell. They will have Model 3s being sold in the 100,000s around the world.
They will have the truck being produced and maybe a pick up truck too which is the highest selling segment in the USA and nobody else is building one. They have a huge head start right now so it will take quite a while for others to catch up. 

I think Tesla would likely be funded through some Chinese parties, maybe Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, government subsidies etc. Maybe Softbank and the Saudis. Who knows but he is not stupid enough to tweet this out without knowing the repercussions. He would have known exactly the kind of feedback this would have had and would have been prepared for it.  Any clown would know that.

The Chinese are driving this revolution. They do not want to be dependent on oil as its a national security issue and the best way to reduce this is through EVs/Renweables.  There are only two players in this game right now, China and Tesla , Musk is getting no support from the US government despite all the jobs he is creating so I dont think he would be too sad at all partnering with the Chinese.

liamog

First time I've heard a Tesla supporter defend stock analysts, normally they believe in they are all lyeing/short selling.

Shefwedfan

liamog wrote: »

First time I've heard a Tesla supporter defend stock analysts, normally they believe in they are all lyeing/short selling.

You did notice that the post did not include the source or link


It's more BS from Thierry/Y2K/few others/Mike......


Look at page 1 for more pointless rubbish at that stage he/she was still Y2K


Thierry had left and said he/she would come back in 2022....thatsa pity he/she didn't stick to that promise

bk

What Tesla are doing with Panasonic very much reminds me of what Apple has been doing behind the scenes for the past 20 years.

The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, but the others used large 2.5" laptop HDD's which made them to big to fit in a pocket. Toshiba invented a new smaller 1.8" HDD, but couldn't finance a factory to build it in quantity. Apple agreed to finance the factory for Tosh in return for exclusivity for 2 years and cheaper prices (to pay back the loan). Thus the iPod was born, it fit in your pocket and no one else could compete, as they simply couldn't source the same HDD's

Apple has down this repeatedly over the years. When they were going to release the iPod Nano, they again realised that while there were companies making NAND flash memory, they were too small and making no where near enough to satisfy the demand that Apple would generate. So again they spent billions building factories for flash memory companies in return for exclusivity. For years, Apple were buying up 70% of all the flash market and other companies could not get enough supply and had to pay way more for what they could get.

Apple continue to do this until today, investing billions every year in new factories and machinery for partner companies on key components.

It is a very smart strategy to help corner a market.

Now I'm not saying that Tesla will continue to corner the market like this long term. But it is a good short term strategy to ensure supply of key components and keep competitors away for a while giving them breathing space to grow market share before everyone else gets a chance to enter the market in force.

I do feel that the likes of VW, etc. will need to follow suit and partner with battery companies and finance the factories/machine/mines up front to get things going. Just buying OEM isn't going to work for them for a key, developing component like batteries.

unkel

bk wrote: »

It is a very smart strategy to help corner a market.

Aye. You need a huge pile of cash for that strategy. Only a company that has consistently been selling high value stuff for 3 or 4 times what it cost to make them can do that.

Tesla is not quite there. Yet

(and of course will never be - Apple is one of a kind)

Shefwedfan

Tesla is not Apple and never will be Apple

If Tesla invented the car then maybe.....but they didn't so don't see why you would make that comparison

ELM327

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Tesla is not Apple and never will be Apple

If Tesla invented the car then maybe.....but they didn't so don't see why you would make that comparison

Apple didnt invent the ipod or the smart phone, they just improved it.
Tesla did not invent the car (or even the EV) but they improved it


Both brands have their legions of devoted fanboys and devoted haters. I see the commonality!:p

ted1

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Tesla is not Apple and never will be Apple

If Tesla invented the car then maybe.....but they didn't so don't see why you would make that comparison

They could well be. Look st the share price compared to traditional manufacturers. People are willing to pay money for there shares.

Shefwedfan

ELM327 wrote: »

Apple didnt invent the ipod or the smart phone, they just improved it.
Tesla did not invent the car (or even the EV) but they improved it


Both brands have their legions of devoted fanboys and devoted haters. I see the commonality!:p

Apple invented the MAC, which even before the iPod and Smartphone they had a strong product and billions in the bank....they also had a stream income from patents


If Tesla invent something ground breaking they maybe....


Every company has fanboys.....that doesn't suggest the company is any better than its rivals....

Shefwedfan

ted1 wrote: »

They could well be. Look st the share price compared to traditional manufacturers. People are willing to pay money for there shares.

Share price?

ted1

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Share price?

Yes.

They are valued as a tech company as opposed to a car manufacturer

Mike9832

ted1 wrote: »

Yes.

They are valued as a tech company as opposed to a car manufacturer

Will be worth more than VW soon, then Toyota

ted1

Mike9832 wrote: »

Will be worth more than VW soon, then Toyota

58bn market cap v 100bn
When you look at the output of the two It’s crazy, well on their way to Apple status

Shefwedfan

ted1 wrote: »

58bn market cap v 100bn
When you look at the output of the two It’s crazy, well on their way to Apple status

Really, you judge the companies by share price?


Shows how little you Tesla fanboys know

Apple is a lot bigger than share price, reputation etc etc etc....

ted1

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Really, you judge the companies by share price?


Shows how little you Tesla fanboys know

Apple is a lot bigger than share price, reputation etc etc etc....

Your the biggest VW fanboy in here!

Fact is it’s being traded as a tech company. And is a breaking the mould.

Market cap is generally a good way to judge a company.

Shefwedfan

ted1 wrote: »

Your the biggest VW fanboy in here!

Fact is it’s being traded as a tech company. And is a breaking the mould.

Market cap is generally a good way to judge a company.

As previously said, I would buy a Tesla if it was the best car.....I post VW because I think people would be interested.



Of the current batch of electric cars the eGolf is the best. That's why I bought it.



It is simple, if the Leaf was better I would have bought the Leaf, if the Ioniq was better I would have bought the Ioniq....I tested them all


When I go to replace the eGolf I will test what cars are available, hopefully the choice will be Kona, eNiro, Leaf 60kWh, Ioniq 60kWh, Neo, Model 3 etc


Once I have tested all I will buy the best. Simple as that.


This fanboy stuff is a load of bull***t to me, people raving about a car and how brillant it is when they have never even sat into it.....


Tesla is a car company and based on what they have done so far it is a very poor one....missed deadline, poor manufacturing, poor build quality, poor treatment of staff etc etc etc......trying to compare Tesla to a company like Apple which is 40 years old and has a history of innovation/great products/brillant manufacturing/excellent quality etc etc etc is a joke in my eyes....they should not be even mentioned in the same breath....but sure that is only my opinion :P

Mike9832

ted1 wrote: »

58bn market cap v 100bn
When you look at the output of the two It’s crazy, well on their way to Apple status

Sales growth of 26,000% in the last 5 years and no competition can do that

ted1

Shefwedfan wrote: »

As previously said, I would buy a Tesla if it was the best car.....I post VW because I think people would be interested.



Of the current batch of electric cars the eGolf is the best. That's why I bought it.



It is simple, if the Leaf was better I would have bought the Leaf, if the Ioniq was better I would have bought the Ioniq....I tested them all


When I go to replace the eGolf I will test what cars are available, hopefully the choice will be Kona, eNiro, Leaf 60kWh, Ioniq 60kWh, Neo, Model 3 etc


Once I have tested all I will buy the best. Simple as that.


This fanboy stuff is a load of bull***t to me, people raving about a car and how brillant it is when they have never even sat into it.....


Tesla is a car company and based on what they have done so far it is a very poor one....missed deadline, poor manufacturing, poor build quality, poor treatment of staff etc etc etc......trying to compare Tesla to a company like Apple which is 40 years old and has a history of innovation/great products/brillant manufacturing/excellent quality etc etc etc is a joke in my eyes....they should not be even mentioned in the same breath....but sure that is only my opinion :P

Tesla drove the market to electric automated cars.

Apple did the same with smart phones. You paint a glorious picture if Apple but don’t forget it was Microsoft that had to bail them out.

Missed deadlines is ok in my book especially for a small conpany that’s scaling up to mass produce cars. With the majority of components coming from in house

Jobs and Musk are both innovators.