Who’s going to Tesla after their current TDI?

El Dobro

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Feb 21, 2006
Location
NJ
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2017 Bolt EV Premier, 2023 Bolt EUV Premier
He's a little wacky at times, but I still like the guy. Just don't like the interiors of his cars.
 

pedroYUL

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Joined
Sep 8, 2011
Location
MI, USA
TDI
2015 Passat CVCA; 2015 GSW CRUA; 2004 wagon BEW(brother)
Never liked the guy with superiority complex.

Indeed for the people who say he's brilliant, he never had an original idea, just knew how to exploit someone's else's: PayPal, not his idea; Tesla, not his company to begin with; SpaceX, easy to do when you have plenty of Russian talent looking for jobs, just need deep pockets.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
Like the title of this video, I find the author somewhat annoying, but since a friend of mine has this EV I was curious.

It struck me after watching that I could make that trip (815 miles, significant drop in elevation from CO to NV) in my Jetta Wagon on one tank of fuel. That would mean I could stop whenever and whereever I wanted, I wouldn't have to deal with incorrect info from the vehicle telling me I wasn't going to make it to my next stop, sub-optimal charging speeds, and the crazy short range (186 miles on a full charge) this $50K+ EV offers. It would also significantly shorten the time it took to make the trip.

Cost of energy at the first charging stop was $0.48 kWh. This car still has charges left on the free Megawatt of charging it got when delivered, but when that runs out this EV would cost $0.15-$0.17/mile to operate, approximately twice what my TDI costs.

And people wonder why EV sales aren't taking off.
 

ZippyNH

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2015
Location
Southern NH
TDI
2015 JETTA TDI SE
Like the title of this video, I find the author somewhat annoying, but since a friend of mine has this EV I was curious.

It struck me after watching that I could make that trip (815 miles, significant drop in elevation from CO to NV) in my Jetta Wagon on one tank of fuel. That would mean I could stop whenever and whereever I wanted, I wouldn't have to deal with incorrect info from the vehicle telling me I wasn't going to make it to my next stop, sub-optimal charging speeds, and the crazy short range (186 miles on a full charge) this $50K+ EV offers. It would also significantly shorten the time it took to make the trip.

Cost of energy at the first charging stop was $0.48 kWh. This car still has charges left on the free Megawatt of charging it got when delivered, but when that runs out this EV would cost $0.15-$0.17/mile to operate, approximately twice what my TDI costs.

And people wonder why EV sales aren't taking off.
Exactly...
Charging at home for around town is cheap..
Quick charging is inconvenient at best, almost always $$$$ and isn't good for the batteries by most accounts.
Plus reality is you MIGHT have to wait in line for HOURS to charge due to it being a holiday or emergency with lots of people traveling.
A person with ICE can buy renewable fuel in many cases, or pay to make it carbon neutral (if they care) and "refill" or "recharge " their car in 2 minutes as opposed to 20.
Reality is electric power may or may not be carbon neutral and even then a LARGE percentage is lost is transmission, conversion and storage....plus the idea that replacing a perfectly working car with a new one is crazy from a perspective of how much metal etc has to be remelted to manufacture a replacement car then shipped etc. sure it might save a bit per mile over its life IF it doesn't get wrecked, but the older well running car is getting more out of that "sunk" energy and carbon that was used to BUILD it.
But I guess electric cars are like a religion...
You have to believe in it for it to make sense
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
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Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
Kia claims this car should charge from 10% to 80 or 90% in 18 mins. The user was finding it was taking more than twice that long. I can't imagine having to stop and sit for 40min plus every 150 miles or so. And I don't think this kind of performance is uncommon, from what I see out there.
 

gearheadgrrrl

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Dec 15, 2002
Location
Buffalo Ridge (southwest Minnesota)
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'15 Golf DSG, '13 JSW DSG surrendered to VW, '03 Golf 2 door manual
Current charger availability is no guarantee of future charger availability... There's now at least a dozen high speed chargers within a hundred kilometers of me, but they're rarely used. Charger owners don't seem to budget for repairs and aren't going to keep a charger where it ain't used, so I suspect my rural area will be back to few or no public chargers in a few years.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

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Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
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'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
According to the video, it wasn't the chargers. For some reason Kia shuts off battery preconditioning when the battery levels fall below 19%, which is, of course, when you need it. So some cells were cooler than others, and that caused the car to limit the charge rate.

When I watch that kind of stuff, I can't help but wonder: Why would I need to know this?
 

gulfcoastguy

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Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Location
MS Gulfcoast
TDI
TDI sold, Mazda 3 purchased
Kias with their 800volt architecture have particular problems with Tesla's superchargers that don't charge at 800volts. It doesn't matter if they are using an individual adapter or one of the few V4 series with Magic dock. They actually do better at one of the Electrify America 350kW chargers, provided that it's working that is.
I've run into CCS chargers(non Tesla) that seem to be deliberately "throttled down" or charging slower than they should be even in 80 degree weather. I believe that it has something to do with demand charges. But at Electrify America if you are limited to 30kW despite having an almost empty battery it is likely that the hose coolant system at the "pump" is broken.
I don't see Elmo breaking a sweat to accommodate non Tesla vehicles any time soon.
 

RexNICO

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2013
Location
South West OH
TDI
2011 Tiguan, 2011 Q7
Like the title of this video, I find the author somewhat annoying, but since a friend of mine has this EV I was curious.

It struck me after watching that I could make that trip (815 miles, significant drop in elevation from CO to NV) in my Jetta Wagon on one tank of fuel. That would mean I could stop whenever and whereever I wanted, I wouldn't have to deal with incorrect info from the vehicle telling me I wasn't going to make it to my next stop, sub-optimal charging speeds, and the crazy short range (186 miles on a full charge) this $50K+ EV offers. It would also significantly shorten the time it took to make the trip.

Cost of energy at the first charging stop was $0.48 kWh. This car still has charges left on the free Megawatt of charging it got when delivered, but when that runs out this EV would cost $0.15-$0.17/mile to operate, approximately twice what my TDI costs.

And people wonder why EV sales aren't taking off.
It may be worth noting, the Kia EV6 in that video is the GT (not to be confused with the GT-Line) trim level. It's commonly used for the "click bait" videos like this. It's range (EPA 218) is lower compared to other AWD trims b/c of the 21" wheels/tires and the 576 HP & 545 ft/lb.

Does your friend have the GT trim? I'd personally choose that (purchase price be damned) trim for the performance, as my use case doesn't really need to be able to crack off >2 hours or road tripping 97% of the time.

So, while I wouldn't try to tell anyone EV's are built for road tripping, this example is set-up to be underwhelming at best.

Not to mention, when using the "complimentary charging" the various public charging systems will show the highest possible rate (kind of like the hotel room rate on the back of the hotel door).

I think there are articles from established auto industry magazines that make fairer cost & range comparisons.
 

d24tdi

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Joined
Jan 6, 2019
Location
MT
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BHW x3, BEW x2, ALH x2, AHU, 1Z, AFB, AKN, BCZ, BDH
Reality is electric power may or may not be carbon neutral and even then a LARGE percentage is lost is transmission, conversion and storage....
To be fair, most of those variables and logistical costs/losses apply to liquid fossil fuels and renewable fuels as well. Moving energy around is never free, regardless whether it's a tanker truck of diesel or an electrical transmission line.

And although electricity generation sometimes does involve the potential for air quality impacts and carbon emissions too, it can matter that the generation of those pollutants is NOT from a tailpipe. Both in terms of keeping the pollutant source away from the populations that could be harmed by it, and in terms of the mechanics of addressing the pollution itself. For example, plenty of electric generation plants that run on natural gas or oil or coal control NOx emissions using SCR systems working on the same concept as what's in the exhaust of a modern diesel car..... But for obvious reasons, SCR is much easier to manage in the stack of a powerplant than it is in the downpipe of a Jetta. Steady state operation that can be carefully controlled and optimized for temp/etc, vs a car that varies from cold to hot and full load to idle etc, plus no packaging concerns....

So, IMO good reasons why EV tech has advantages when operated in the right role that puts it in its sweet spot.

But I agree with the points about the insanity of the obsession with long range and fast charging. You're taking a technology that DOES work perfectly in some specific situations of short-haul, stop-and-go operation with relatively low loss to aero or rolling resistance and plenty of regen opportunity..... and then you're asking it to go and do what it does worst and an ICE, especially a diesel, engine does best: punch a hole in the air at 80 mph for 10 hours straight, dealing with continuous losses and no energy recovery, while running the heat or AC all the way, and with the absolute minimum of stopping and refueling time. That's using the wrong tool for the wrong job. And it's why I am just dumbfounded by the folks "switching" from a TDI to an EV. You either had the wrong use case for the TDI or now have the wrong case for the EV, or vice versa. One extreme to the other. All the craziness with fast charging and long range are strained attempts to make the wrong technology work in the wrong application. And it's wasteful of EV production resources, charging resources, and harmful to batteries. Why is everyone in the EV world focused on this instead of solving other EV adoption problems that have a far better cost-benefit potential?

To be clear, I'm a proponent of EV availability and development since for solving certain transportation problems (urban use, taxis, short haul delivery, regions with serious local air quality issues tied to tailpipe emissions). For those situations it makes sense. Trying to apply it to every scenario, including ones where it is a poor match, or force it on anyone is where the equation falls apart in my opinion. I want anyone for whom it works best to have every ability to obtain it and gain benefit from it. But it wouldn't work at all for my unusual case where distance and conditions make it a poor choice and I don't care to be told that I need to suffer trying to adapt it or should accept it or that the problems I and those in my position see with implementing it are not real. Not any more than I want someone to tell me that a screwdriver is the right tool for torquing a cylinder head. Go ahead and try it if you want but it's plainly not suited and you don't get to be offended when we laugh when it doesn't work out. Others whose operating environments are not suited to an EV won't be interested either. In this self-selecting group of diesel passenger car owners, it makes logical sense there are lot of us holding that view.
 

tikal

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
TDI
2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
Hybrids vehicle sales have a much better chance of growing exponentially in the next five to ten years than BEVs in my view. The main reason: you need only one vehicle to serve the needs of city and highway driving with a minimum road range of 500 miles (most likely) and fueling that takes a few minutes at most. What percentage of BEVs owners use their vehicles full time for both city and highway driving? I would venture to say, the percentage ought to be very small, probably single digits percentage territory.
 

Tin Man

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Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Location
Coastal Empire
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Daughter's: 2004 NB TDI PD GLS DSG (gone to pasture)
Hybrids vehicle sales have a much better chance of growing exponentially in the next five to ten years than BEVs in my view. The main reason: you need only one vehicle to serve the needs of city and highway driving with a minimum road range of 500 miles (most likely) and fueling that takes a few minutes at most. What percentage of BEVs owners use their vehicles full time for both city and highway driving? I would venture to say, the percentage ought to be very small, probably single digits percentage territory.
I guess its not from cutting the fuel bill, be it gasoline or diesel from $200/$300 per month to nearly $5 per month for $0.02/KwHr at night electricity as BMW gives free level 3 charging for 2 years at VW owned Electrify America chargers. Of course mostly home-owners have this as well as the $7500 rebate currently at risk of being cancelled. Who knows what will happen.... but the EV's drive magnificently and are a threat to get speeding tickets as we have found, so the minor inconvenience of charging can be dealt with not too differently than finding proper diesel for cars not too long ago......
 

tikal

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Joined
Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
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2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
so the minor inconvenience of charging can be dealt with not too differently than finding proper diesel for cars not too long ago......
Maybe "minor inconvenience" for you personally, but for the general public highway charging of BEVs is not trending towards "convenient" anytime soon 🙁. If the fuel prices go up people will gravitate towards buying more hybrid vehicles rather than BEVs, or just keep what ICEs they have in my view.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
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'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
d24tdi you're right that an EV is not the right tool for a long distance road trip. The problem is, manufacturers are selling EVs here that are large and luxurous, with big battery packs to maximize range. And they're expensive. If I'm going to spend $80-100K for a Lucid, Tesla Model S, or Mercedes EQE, I'm going to want to take it on a road trip, dammit.

If EV makers offered small, less expensive options here that would serve well as local, short distance tools that would be largely charged at home, then it would make more sense for many people to make the transition to EVs. I thought the Chevy Bolt was a good example of that type of EV, but it was discontinued. The e-Honda is another, but not offered here. Same with the new Renault 5, which might be the best example yet.

Instead we get a Silverado EV with a 100+kW battery and a $100K price tag. What a waste.
 

ZippyNH

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Joined
Apr 22, 2015
Location
Southern NH
TDI
2015 JETTA TDI SE
Exactly...
A 15-20k grocery getter, aka like a Nissan LEAF, but with good engineering as a second around town car would be IMHO a good car.
To lower costs, a diesel heater to make plentiful heat at low cost, without affecting range would be great IMHO....much more simple than making a heat pump and better in extreme cold too. VW used gasoline ones in bugs for many years....
But then it would not be "pure" and many people would ridicule it as a environmentally destructive car because it might use 5 gallons of diesel a year for cabin heat and pre warming the cabin and batteries in extreme cold.
 

El Dobro

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Joined
Feb 21, 2006
Location
NJ
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2017 Bolt EV Premier, 2023 Bolt EUV Premier
If EV makers offered small, less expensive options here that would serve well as local, short distance tools that would be largely charged at home, then it would make more sense for many people to make the transition to EVs. I thought the Chevy Bolt was a good example of that type of EV, but it was discontinued. The e-Honda is another, but not offered here. Same with the new Renault 5, which might be the best example yet.
The new, improved Bolt should be out by Fall.
 

kjclow

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Joined
Apr 26, 2003
Location
Charlotte, NC
TDI
2010 JSW TDI silver and black. 2017 Ram Ecodiesel dark red with brown and beige interior.
Maybe "minor inconvenience" for you personally, but for the general public highway charging of BEVs is not trending towards "convenient" anytime soon 🙁. If the fuel prices go up people will gravitate towards buying more hybrid vehicles rather than BEVs, or just keep what ICEs they have in my view.
Yup, we looked at electric, plug in hybrids, and regular hybrids and have determined that the regular hybrid meets our needs the best. The plug-in would double our electricity usage if we tried to run it only on battery power. Not considering the all-electric because I like the idea of jumping into either vehicle and heading off for a few weeks at a time without having to worry about where and when I'm going to have to plug in.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
I guess its not from cutting the fuel bill, be it gasoline or diesel from $200/$300 per month to nearly $5 per month for $0.02/KwHr at night electricity as BMW gives free level 3 charging for 2 years at VW owned Electrify America chargers. Of course mostly home-owners have this as well as the $7500 rebate currently at risk of being cancelled. Who knows what will happen.... but the EV's drive magnificently and are a threat to get speeding tickets as we have found, so the minor inconvenience of charging can be dealt with not too differently than finding proper diesel for cars not too long ago......
I can count on my thumbs the times I've had trouble finding diesel in the 45 years I've been driving diesel cars. To compare that to the issues people are having with away from home charging is ridiclious. And I don't know where you're getting $0.02/kWh electricity: It costs more than 10x that here.

I drive between 25-30,000 miles a year (I don't know where I go, but there you have it.) All my vehicles cost about $0.08/mile to run, except for the BMW, which I almost never drive. Unless I added more solar to my house, charging an EV at the rates my utility charges would cost about the same as the diesel I currently use.

I have a 275 gallon diesel tank in my garage with a pump and nozzle, so I currently "charge" my TDIs at home. :).
 

Tin Man

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Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Location
Coastal Empire
TDI
Daughter's: 2004 NB TDI PD GLS DSG (gone to pasture)
It's actually $0.016/KwHr from 11 PM to 7 AM before some minor fees and taxes.

I qualified by saying "good" and "car" diesel which originally was harder to find and not much different than current EV charging stations (which are everywhere), I find. I'm not a "diesel is diesel" kind of guy and didn't always drive a Beetle TDI with its large nozzle capability....

I can get 3.5 to 4.5 miles per KwHr. with our i4/i5 efficiency which adds up to a very small monthly fuel bill. Without the special EV rates at home and at outside chargers which may be about $0.60/KwHr, yes its similar to the cost of diesel per mile....

Looking at the system as a whole, its better in Georgia with the newest nuclear power plant in NA as well as more effective use (I hope) of solar tech. My house's roof isn't that good to make solar panels a go.

The infrastructure in GA and FL for EV's isn't bad at all. New England, probably not so much.
 

d24tdi

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Joined
Jan 6, 2019
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MT
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BHW x3, BEW x2, ALH x2, AHU, 1Z, AFB, AKN, BCZ, BDH
d24tdi you're right that an EV is not the right tool for a long distance road trip. The problem is, manufacturers are selling EVs here that are large and luxurous, with big battery packs to maximize range. And they're expensive. If I'm going to spend $80-100K for a Lucid, Tesla Model S, or Mercedes EQE, I'm going to want to take it on a road trip, dammit.

If EV makers offered small, less expensive options here that would serve well as local, short distance tools that would be largely charged at home, then it would make more sense for many people to make the transition to EVs. I thought the Chevy Bolt was a good example of that type of EV, but it was discontinued. The e-Honda is another, but not offered here. Same with the new Renault 5, which might be the best example yet.

Instead we get a Silverado EV with a 100+kW battery and a $100K price tag. What a waste.
I think that hits it on the head. It's not at all that the EV concept is not viable or valuable. It's that the execution and implementation -- in terms of the approach to the vehicles being marketed, and the people they're being marketed to, and the support systems being stood up around them -- take something that could make sense and proceed with it in the least sensible possible way.

You're trying to sell expensive, large, wasteful EVs to people with deep pockets whose needs don't fit the balance of strengths and weaknesses of EV propulsion. You're hooking them up with great options to charge at home or along interstate highways or in parking spots at luxury shopping centers for when they take their longer trips a couple times a year, even though those resources will by their nature be underutilized since home charging is only ever for one or two vehicles and interstate use is not where EVs make sense. Your wealthy customers for the high dollar models are buying the cars as novelties and are mostly not big commuters so you're not really replacing many ICE miles. Then you're ignoring the population of low-income urban dwellers, Uber and Instacart drivers, medical couriers, kid shuttlers, etc who drive a lot of stop-and-go miles and could actually benefit from the upsides of an EV (and bring their benefits in terms of energy use and pollution reduction to the rest of society), by not marketing any small/simple/cheap short-range models or providing realistic charging resources at curbsides for those who DON'T do 300 mile road trips on interstates or have home charging solutions available.

It's a recipe for waste of resources and money, and undermining what could be a good tool in the larger toolbox of transportation solutions.

That's how we're doing it here. It's the opposite in China of course, where inexpensive sensible EV models prevail and as a result EV sales from their homegrown mfrs are exploding. I think that would happen here too if we were getting $15k Seagull EV's to market rather than $100k Silverado and Lightning EVs or $150k Cybertrucks. Use the enormous battery materials it takes to build one 6000-lb truck with a 300-mile range, and instead build five or six smaller and shorter-range and far more affordable EV cars that are more suited to the real-world mission. Not unlike using the fuel one 12mpg pickup can use to get four TDIs to the same destination.
 

Tin Man

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Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Location
Coastal Empire
TDI
Daughter's: 2004 NB TDI PD GLS DSG (gone to pasture)
A Tesla model S and long distance driving is a no-brainer win-win with their charging network.

Trying to tie a reason for an expensive car purchase is also somewhat comical.

Most of my friends that don't get how good EV's are haven't driven one.

I would take my i5 on a long distance trip in a heartbeat.
 
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