Volkswagen's Elektroshock

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Financial Times calls “Volkswagen a long-time sceptic about hybrid and electric cars.” However, the pink sheet announces that Wolfsburg “has officially shifted gears.” That VW had been a sceptic is an understatement. Despite green initiatives for public and political consumption, internally, they laughed about hybrids and electrics. Their private position was that the consumption and emissions of a hybrid could be achieved with their low displacement supercharged engines and some weight savings. Pure plugins? Ach du mein Lieber. People have their next vacation in mind when they buy a car, and last VW looked, there were no charging stations on the Brenner Pass to Italy.

The official gear shifting occurred at last week’s Geneva motor show, where Volkswagen announced an “unprecedented” drive into electric vehicles.

To underscore the electrical drive, the nearly forgotten Seat brand showed a sporty all-electric “concept” vehicle, the IBE. Porsche showcased the 918 Spyder, a hybrid gasoline-electric concept car that could deliver 78 miles per gallon (not as per EPA) and would help Porsche get around their CAFE problems, if the car finishes on time, and if people buy it. Porsche is hell-bent on building the thing. “Rarely has Porsche shown a prototype that wasn’t built later,” said Porsche chief Michael Macht.

In Geneva, VW’s Winterkorn said that „Volkswagen brings electric cars for everybody. Cars that are friendly to the environment, suitable for everyday use, and affordable.” Germany’s Focus magazine was suprised that Winterkorn “even delivered a timetable.” This year will see hybridized Touaregs, Cayennes, and Audi Q5s, along with a test fleet of pure plug-ins. Next year will bring 5000 electric Golfs, for testing purposes also. In 2012, there will be a hybrid Jetta, and a small series of the pure plug-in Audi e-tron. In 2013, there will be an E-Up, an E-Golf and a E-Jetta. Suzuki will also play its part.

What was lacking in cars was filled with hubris. “Electric cars will be the second load-bearing pillar” of Volkswagen, announced Winterkorn according to Die Zeit. Before the auto show started, Winterkorn announced that “our target is to be market leader of electric cars by 2018.” (Never mind that Daimler announced the same. They can be lucky if they are still around by 2018.) 2018 is the target for everything at Volkswagen. By that year, Volkswagen wants to be the world’s largest auto manufacturer, wants to build and sell more than 10m cars worldwide (that’s more than the U.S.A. consumed last year).

And how many electric cars by 2018? Electric cars, that second load bearing pillar, are budgeted to amount to 3 percent. By 2018. Three percent. Maybe, the skepticism of lore hasn’t been totally expunged yet. Possibly, some electroconvulsive therapy would help? Said to be as beneficial against depression as for mania.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Brettc Brettc on Mar 09, 2010

    I've heard about VW and their diesel electric prototypes as well, but never read anything about it until now. Popular Science now has all their magazines online through Google Books and the link below has some content from 1990 about a hybrid Golf that could get 95 MPG. Not bad for 1990! http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=mAEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=30&query=hybrid+diesel I'm surprised VW is actually getting into hybrids, but I think they kind of have to for the U.S. market at least. But 3% of sales is a pretty low number.

    • Tricky Dicky Tricky Dicky on Mar 10, 2010

      3% was for BEVs, not for hybrids. AFAIK they haven't published a sales target for hybrids. Given that the Touareg HV is going to be priced 38% higher than the diesel equivalent here in Europe, it doesn't seem to me like it's of great strategic importance to them. I think they just want to support their environmental image by saying "jah, ve hav zem too!"

  • Johnny ro Johnny ro on Mar 09, 2010

    My new audi has sophisticated electric mgt, it turns off electric functions with declining voltage (i.e. failiure) to keep things running till you get it fixed. I wondered why they would do this but it looks like its part of electification overall.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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