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You may also know the name Martin Eberhard.
A couple of years ago, Musk forced Eberhard out as CEO of Tesla Motors.
At its Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) in Palo Alto, California, VW Group CEO Martin Winterkorn said Monday that the automaker plans an electric-powered Golf and an electric-powered Up-type car to be ready for the market by calendar 2012.
"One of the two will be the first all-electric VW in the U.S.," Winterkorn said. The VW e-Golf currently under development has a 26.5 killowatt-hour battery pack with a 100-mile range, though like its competitors, Volkswagen is working to keep up with rapidly improving battery technology and to take advantage of rapidly falling costs.
As a result of the Tesla mediation, VW proudly introduces Eberhard as "founder of Tesla Motors." Eighteen months ago, he quietly became electric vehicle engineering director at VW's ERL in Palo Alto. Eberhard says VW will have working prototypes of electric cars on the road this year. Has he sold VW on consumer cells, like those used in the Lotus-bodied Tesla Roadster?
"They're coming around," Eberhard says.
VW has set a lot of hard-to-reach goals for 2018. Three percent of the vehicles it sells by then will be electric-powered, and while that doesn't sound like much, that's 300,000 worldwide. (Eberhard hopes electrics will make up the vast majority of the market in 20 years.) And in '18, VW plans to sell 800,000 Volkswagens, plus 200,000 Audis in North America. Those numbers will help VW Group pass Toyota to become the world's largest automaker.
Read more: http://blogs.motortrend.com/6670742...plans-to-beat-toyota/index.html#ixzz0uOUdpPir
VW brand board member Ulrich Hackenberg told us over lunch that it's not only a matter of finding the highest-capacity cells at the lowest cost but also of mass production capabilities, the latter, he says, not being truly feasible until 2013. What a timely coincidence....
Having spent the last decade joining its German brethren in poo-poo-ing EVs and hybrids, Volkswagen has finally decided that it makes sense to develop a pure EV for eventual mass-market sales. And rather than buying into a company like Tesla, as VW’s arch-rival Toyota did, VW set up its own battery research team around Tesla founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard. When I toured VW’s Palo Alto Electronics Research Lab last year, Eberhard’s contribution was already visible in the form of renderings of battery arrays for this Golf blue-e-motion and the Audi e-tron electric sportscars. Just like the battery packs that Eberhard developed at Tesla, the VW systems eschew the expensive prismatic cells used by Nissan’s Leaf and Chevy’s Volt in favor of 18650 cells, the cheapest, most-produced format for lithium-ion cells. Using these cells, argues VW, will make its packs more energy-dense, safer and cheaper than the competition. And to think, they got so much of the 18650 array know-how without even buying into the strategic nightmare that is Tesla!
In the Golf blue-e-motion, 180 of these AA battery-sized 18650 cells are packed into modules, 30 of which are assembled into a pack that occupies the bottom and rear of the car, including the cargo area underfloor, under the rear seats, and in the central tunnel of the Golf’s underbody.
Interestingly the Golf uses 3 phase charging (as we've seen before) but the production versions will also get CHAdeMO for use on the highway.
Interestingly the Golf uses 3 phase charging (as we've seen before) but the production versions will also get CHAdeMO for use on the highway. So it seems like VW gets it - 3P for moderately fast charging at home and work and then much faster charging for highway use. Let's hope that sets a trend.
Agreed. Though by 2014, I'd be surprised if they used CHAdeMO and not that Mennekes combo connector.
True... wait and see I guess.
Your comparison doesn't apply because a DVD or Blueray player doesn't burn $4/gal gasoline that is only going to go up in price....That's exactly what I don't want to happen. Remember the HD-DVD against bluray campaign. Customers kept sitting on DVD until one format emerged as the future standard. Manufacturers changed their strategy only when it became totally clear that not one future format is winning over the other, but both failed to gain market share over the old standard from the lack of customer confidence.
Same with EVs here. As long as there is no possibility for every EV to get the best out out every charging station, car buyers will sit on ICE tech. Tesla and the other manufacturers apparently don't understand that this is not a technical/engineering issue but one of marketing and building confidence.
Your comparison doesn't apply because a DVD or Blueray player doesn't burn $4/gal gasoline that is only going to go up in price....
Also you don't need a dvd or blueray player to get to work...
So why to the manufactures do it? Money.
The licensing rights for a perpetual standard is too large to ignore.
Or for some manufacturers - that is the whole point. Afterall GM's strategy is based on "range anxiety" which disappears if there is a good QC network.Same with EVs here. As long as there is no possibility for every EV to get the best out out every charging station, car buyers will sit on ICE tech. Tesla and the other manufacturers apparently don't understand that this is not a technical/engineering issue but one of marketing and building confidence.
Then Tesla should declare its charging solution "open source", place all descriptions in the public domain and GPL the on board charger firmware. If you are right, all the other manufacturers would jump on the one, superior, free solution.