It's not that customers don't want EVs in Europe, Tesla is doing just fine, and Model Y is outselling VW ID.4 by a factor 20.
The major gripe with VW is that the infotainment is a decade behind the competition, and software updates for even "simple" bugs (like scheduled charging not working) are 12+ months underway, and requires a visit to the dealer as OTA is still not working, and the "new and improved" software then comes with a different set of bugs that you get to wait x months for a resolution to.
VW was doing "ok" in europe until Tesla lowered its prices in february, but at its current "state", buying a Tesla gets you a much better car for less, to the point that if you want creature comforts like wireless phone charging, panoramic roof, upgraded stereo, built in navigation, the VW comes out about 20% more expensive than the equivalent Tesla.
I came to post this and you hear me to it. We test drove the ID4. Decided against it before the test drive was over because of the in car tech being dated.
Went with an ioniq 5 spaceship which is positioned comfortably in 2023. It's not the EV, VW. It's you.
My main use of Carplay is for navigation and entertainment (music/audiobooks).
With Tesla you have Google Maps built in, which most people would agree is the best map solution there is today (if you can live with the privacy issues, but at least with Tesla you're not sharing your information with Google).
The car even picks up calendar appointments from my phone, and suggests routing to any destination a meeting might have. It also supports displaying and/or reading out any messages you receive, as well as replying to them.
As for entertainment, Tesla supports Spotify and Apple Music (and a handful of others IIRC), and in Europe comes with a free Spotify Premium "subscription" (only usable in the car).
The only thing i use my phone for these days is listening to Audible, which works well over bluetooth.
Everything you say is correct, but the one thing I actually miss on our Tesla is Apple Maps. I have liked it better than Google Maps (or its Tesla version) for a long time -- like its turn/direction instructions (telling you the turn is at the next traffic light or stop light or ... is a lot better than the distance you get from Google Maps).
And, ironically, I was eager to try CarPlay on a recent trip where there was no Tesla rental available, we rented a VW Tiguan, only to discover that for CarPlay to work you needed a USB-A to Airplay cable and I only had USB-C to Airplay cables... I even got a third party USB-A cable at a gas station, only to discover it too didn't work (likely it was cheap POS where they only ran the wires needed for charging). So thanks to VW not supporting USB-C (which our 2020 Tesla Model Y certainly does) I never did experience CarPlay...
I agree that Apple Maps are better, but as a whole i find the infotainment in a Tesla to be very functional, and while directions do take some getting used to, it does work.
> So thanks to VW not supporting USB-C
I previously owned a VW ID.4, which has wireless CarPlay. Sadly, something in either CarPlay or VWs implementation causes the phone to run VERY hot while using it wireless, which in turn causes a lot of battery drain, which again means you will want to charge your phone. Conveniently the ID series have wireless charging (extra option) in a small enclosed compartment, which adds enough heat to make your phone shut down.
Aha you might say, but i will use wired charging. The ID.4 has ample USB-C plugs, 2 for the front seats and 2 for the rear seats, and yes, they do charge your phone, but they don't allow wired carplay, so the heat issue persists.
So yes, the car does support CarPlay, but most of the time it was not worth the trouble.
Besides, any CarPlay implementation today should surely include Apple Maps EV Routing, which will more or less replace the built in route planner and let Apple do the route planning based on real time data from the car, which in theory could be almost as good as Tesla route planning, with the huge caveat that Tesla knows the drag coefficiency of each car, making it able to plan much more precisely.
I believe Tesla does overlay its routing onto google maps, but the actual navigation is coming from OSM ultimately. I’ve noticed Tesla making some really distinct navigation choices vs what appears on my phone in the past, and not in a good way. But it’s been improving over time, and one perk that’s been noted is that because OSM can be populated with data by your average person, Tesla owners have gone in to add intersections/roads etc in the past and improved their own navigation results locally
We cannot quite justify how there has seemed to be little customer reluctance, before EV, about vehicles
-- with diminished repairability, far away from the paradigm of e.g. Dante Giacosa (must be repaired with tools found from drugstores in barren lands), or exemplary car-making like that of old Toyota (can be abused spectacularly and still works);
-- with diminished lifespans;
-- with multiplied points of failure;
-- with little guarantee for privacy (see europe's "e-call", but also other embedded GPS systems);
-- with open doors to malicious third-party hacking;
-- with useless-to-irritating costly features built-in - boosting the price for systems you want removed;
-- with poor quality materials in the areas of creaky, fragile, smelly etc.;
Seen or reported in the whole family from Audi to Skoda. Audi, the "I achieved" brand, nowadays have animated turn signals, a set of bulbs with fancy patterns like Pacman eating the pills (but falling short of the mindful creativity and elegant design awareness of the demoscene): that is not exactly a sign of maturity.
The ID 4 has weird plastic capacitance sensing non-buttons on the steering wheel(1). They don’t press in. It is an odd choice for wheel buttons that one should be able to operate without looking down. It makes the car feel cheap.
There are better EVs out there, including excellent non-teslas with CarPlay.
I have one, it's actually not a huge deal because there's haptics on it. Plus they all have swipe actions in addition to tap actions. For example swiping goes +/- 5mph in cruise control, tapping is 1mph.
Or maybe people just don’t want legacy auto evs? Tesla seems to be doing just fine despite Elon trying everything he can to alienate customers. None of VWs offerings in North America are that attractive. Everyone I’ve talked to either wants a Tesla, Rivian, Ford or Hyundai. I’m sure Toyota will sell tons of theirs whenever that happens.
I'm in the market for my first EV. And yeah, the VWs don't look good. Teslas of course are way better, but also more traditional designs from someone like Hyundai are still superior.
As someone who has owned both a VW ID.4 and a Tesla Model Y, i will say get the Tesla, especially if this is your first EV.
With your first EV you usually get a case of "range anxiety", and with VW and Kia/Hyundai your "estimated range" usually requires you to use apps on your phone to help you with route planning, as the built in "route planner" is mediocre at best.
It will always be a guess as it cannot accurately predict weather/trafic conditions, but with VW the guess can be 30% off or more, and with the older software (2.4) it stubbornly sticks to whatever charge point it originally thought you would get to, despite needing an additional 20% energy to get there.
Tesla has route planning down to an art form. On longer road trips, i arrive with +/- 5% of the original estimate. They do this by taking wind direction into account as well as expected trafic, and also considers your normal driving habits. It also dynamically routes you to the "best nearest" charger, meaning it will chose the less occupied charger that is within range. It also warns you when you're about to drive out of range of known chargers.
All the time i owned the ID.4 i had some form of range anxiety, but with the Tesla that completely vanished. I know i can trust the navigation, so longer trips these days is simply just plotting in the destination in the navigation and start driving.
VW is just not price competitive in the EU EV market in their offerings. Their brand is not premium, midmarket at best, and has suffered from a number of scandals.
They also can't claim og EV/hybrid heritage as e.g Toyota can, but they price their EV's as premium above the budget of the traditional VW buyer.
Anecdotally, I am seeing tonnes of EVs in Ireland these days, the majority being Hyundai, Nissan, MG and VW... But quite a few Tesla's too. VW is the least popular by the looks of it, and as someone who recently bought an EV, it's mostly a price issue.
Maybe, just maybe instrument cluster software that crashes and freezes has something to do with it? On the other hand its only been two years, fixing bugs takes time.
> manufacturers are reportedly growing concerned that EVs are starting to become less attractive due to their premium cost.
Good morning.
The only "advantage" of an electric is that someone else (power plant) burns the gas for you. But at 1.5 times the price of a regular car is a no go.
The advantage being that existing fuel-burning plants can theoretically be seamlessly replaced by solar/wind/hydro/nuclear or more efficient fuel-burning plants down the road -- electricity is electricity no matter where it comes from. A thermal-engine vehicle will be stuck burning the same fuel at more or less the same efficiency for its entire lifetime.
(As a cool aside, some fuel-burning power plants are already crazy efficient. For example, my university has a trigeneration plant that, in addition to electricity, provides steam and chilled water to the campus by extracting the residual heat that would normally be sent straight to the atmosphere. I believe the plant uses an ammonia absorption cycle to produce cold water from a heat source, which is pretty awesome in its own right.)
Now, I'm not sure if this process happens fast enough for an EV to be more efficient over the projected lifetime of the battery. I think it ultimately comes down to your local regulatory environment, existing distribution of energy sources, and public willingness to invest in more efficient infrastructure.
Where I live currently, the first fossil-burning power source for the grid is the fourth largest. That's not that unusual for Europe any more.
Overall I think you can quite easily make an argument for 200 g / kWh as a conservative grid estimate these days, which means 40 - 50 g / km driving typical EVs. That's half what the smallest fossil cars were managing.
The major gripe with VW is that the infotainment is a decade behind the competition, and software updates for even "simple" bugs (like scheduled charging not working) are 12+ months underway, and requires a visit to the dealer as OTA is still not working, and the "new and improved" software then comes with a different set of bugs that you get to wait x months for a resolution to.
VW was doing "ok" in europe until Tesla lowered its prices in february, but at its current "state", buying a Tesla gets you a much better car for less, to the point that if you want creature comforts like wireless phone charging, panoramic roof, upgraded stereo, built in navigation, the VW comes out about 20% more expensive than the equivalent Tesla.