VW's Jacoby says few countries ready for electric vehicles
Click above for a high-res image gallery of the Volkswagen Bluesport Concept
Earlier this month at the Geneva Motor Show, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn mentioned to a group of reporters that, in his mind at least, electric cars were at least 15-20 years away. Now, Volkswagen of USA head Stefan Jacoby has been quoted as saying it will take even longer. Specifically, it could be as long as 35 years before EVs take a significant percentage of market share away from the tried-and-true internal combustion engine.
Why? To answer, Jacoby asks a question: "What would happen if 50 million new electric customers would plug their electric cars in an electric socket? There is no country on earth that is really properly prepared for electric cars." Further, Jacoby suggests that emerging markets like China and India will take the longest to eschew fossil fuels.
There are a few power companies that would disagree with that assessment. Regardless, VeeDub's U.S. head goes on to suggest that the diesel engine is more than ready to pick up the slack on the way to greener motoring, saying that VW's diesels could get as much as 70 miles per gallon within a decade.
[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
paulwesterberg 8:06PM (3/14/2009)
The ceo of a company without any electrics says that EVs are not ready for prime time? Shocking!
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Lad 12:16AM (3/15/2009)
I agree. He is trying to sell diesels in the U.S. market through PR, so He can recoup his investment for having to finally clean up diesel emissions? Well! it won't work except on those who don't think! On second thought, there are still a lot of those people still around........there were even a lot around when VW got away with selling us the early bugs (junk) with funny little ads in the magazines. I guess nothing has changed from VW!
G.D. 1:23PM (3/16/2009)
He is simply flat out wrong.
The DOE did a study in the U.S. and declared that there is enough cpacity in the U.S. grid to power 180 million plug in hybrids RIGHT NOW.
http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=204
"We were very conservative in looking at the idle capacity of power generation assets," said PNNL scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer. "The estimates didn't include hydro, renewables or nuclear plants. It also didn't include plants designed to meet peak demand because they don't operate continuously. We still found that across the country 84 percent of the additional electricity demand created by PHEVs could be met by idle generation capacity."
We need to call out these auto execs every time they disseminate this self serving propaganda.
jake 8:08PM (3/14/2009)
I agree with his estimate, EVs will take a long time to make up half of the market, but he didn't need to make it sound sound like countries aren't even ready to start using EVs. Now's the time to start introducing them, since the "50 million new electric customers" situation will never happen; it'll be a slow process.
Does VW have an EV concept? I don't recall any. I think mostly they are putting it that way to encourage countries to put off EVs and use more diesels, since there are still market where diesel isn't that popular (ie the US).
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Mark 8:21PM (3/14/2009)
I disagree with his estimate. Why? Look to cities which have winter, and what do you see? People plug in their cars at night AND possibly, at work too. Winnipeg is a PRIME example of this.
If we didn't plug in our cars during the winter, we take a big chance that the car won't start, or won't stall on the road.
Cities in which are 'winterized', are already set for electric vehicles. We already have to plug in our cars for 4 months of the year anyways...so it isn't much if a stretch to plug in our cars all year round.
So right then and there, his estimates are completely wrong.
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Brn 1:42AM (3/15/2009)
I have to disagree. I live not that far from Winnipeg. We have two vehicles. One doesn't have a plug, so I can't plug it in. The other, I only plug in when it gets to -20 Fahrenheit or colder. Even then, I plug it in when I first get up in the morning. It's only plugged in for an hour.
I've never worked anywhere where they let you plug your car in. If your car needs to be plugged in at work, there's something wrong with it.
Cars simply start better than they did 30 years ago.
None of that matters, as it has little to do with the ability to charge vehicles. Charging a vehicle uses substantially more juice than plugging car in at night. Of course, even this stuff doesn't matter. Until battery technology comes up to snuff, EV's wont' become mainstream.
jim 8:48AM (3/15/2009)
I need to agree with BRN, plugging a block heater in is a huge difference from charging an EV overnight. When we lived in Minnesota, our cars at the time, a mid 80's Toyota and VW, both reliably started when it was 20-30+ degrees F, ambient temp. Back in the days of carburetors I always plugged in the cars.
But back to the issue of the post. The electric infrastructure is the weak link in the large scale deployment of EVs and until that is addressed EVs will be a niche market.
By the way, I'd like to see what will happen to those batteries when they do need to sit out in below 0 temperatures when not plugged in for 8-10 hours, plus need to deal with heating the vehicle and defrosting the windows. My belief is that the auto fleet will settle on electrically powered vehicles that carry their own generator, an engine.
gorr 10:58AM (3/15/2009)
They never tested any battery car in winter conditions because they know it will be catastrophic and they even have catastrophic results on flat surface and summer conditions. On the other hands hydrogen fuelcells have been build before and have tested good by all manufacturers in summer or winter The first idea is always the better and that's why big oil that have corrupted each and everything on earth is dying slowly but prefer to let dye each and every citizens before them. And this site and every bloggers here have decided to die before big oil. It's easy to notice. When manufacturers have said that hydrogen fuelcell were almost ready, there was a huge protest and one or two limp yes.
Big oil then suggested batteries and manufacturers and especially the majority of bloggers have just swear by batteries even if it plain don't work at all.
jake 4:30PM (3/15/2009)
@ Brns, jim
In general plug-ins don't do well in the cold, so the areas with block heaters probably are not suited to plug-ins rather than vise versa, but within much of the US area the operating temperatures of the batteries are within range of the temperature extremes, it's when you are in Canada that you get in trouble.
The Tesla roadster can drive at ambient temperatures down to -20°C (-4F°). Most typical li-ion cells can only handle low temperatures at that range. It has a heater in the battery coolant circuit for charging in low temperatures.
For those of you in Canada, you'll probably have to buy the ones with the state of the art batteries which can handle down to -30C (-22F). I believe the nimh batteries used in hybrids also go this low.
Chris M 5:10PM (3/15/2009)
Gorr, they have indeed tested battery cars in winter. The Tesla Roadster was tested on the snow and ice in Sweden in mid-winter, there is a test track there specifically for winter testing cars. I also remember a video of a Tango blasting through the snowdrifts like a snowplow. Both of those cars are battery EVs.
Funny thing is, cold weather slows down H2 fuel cells, they won't work at all when they are below freezing. So, how do those H2 prototypes manage cold weather? They use a battery pack which will work down to -30 degrees to run the car and heat the fuel cell up to operating temperature. H2FC cars need batteries, but BEVs don't need fuel cells.
Gorr, don't you ever get tired of being wrong?
Gerald 8:40PM (3/14/2009)
Wow, this really looks like a desperate attempt of VW to justify why they completely missed developing EV technology... Really makes them look bad, I guess they'd better keep their mouth shut :-)
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Chris M 8:55PM (3/14/2009)
It takes time to replace existing vehicles, so I can see why it might take 20 or even 35 years before plug-ins become the predominant type of vehicle.
But that doesn't mean the plug-in revolution will wait 20 or 30 years to start, since it has already started.
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gorr 6:14PM (3/15/2009)
I don't oppose anything contrary to you that make crisis about hydrogen. But seriously actually battery car and plug-ins are a commercial disaster and think and tesla and each other batteries cars manufacturers are eating money at a fast rate and i admit i lauph at them but i don't use vulgarity and plain lies like you to make my point.
I said and i repeat im on the market for a sport car powered by hydrogen and big-oil, goverments, car manufacturers, 99% of bloggers, vatican, buddist, us army goverments, journalist, scientifics, nasa, universities all oppose hydrogen to the utmost degree and are hoping for nothing and cover this with lies. All they want like the rest of humanity is just cheap sex then die and they are willing to kill for that by stealing energy from others.
When i ordered a hydrogen car through this site and others sites in internet it have provoked
a big and huge crisis because nobody have an identity of their own, that's all. Each and every humans just wait for knowing how a car move forward without pollution and high fuel cost and nobody is able to put on the market my one(1) car specification. Do want you want with your car design and technology but don't alter mine that apply to 1 car only like a used malibu fit with a water electrolyser but well tune contrary to the prototypes that we see in youtube that work but work bad because of big carburation and tuning problrems. Only honda have put on ,(lease) a good hydrogen car but not near my town and they don't sell it, so they can go to hell with their offer. A silly car shop near my town could have put on sale my car for 10 000$-15 000$ and i would just buy it.
Jason 8:59PM (3/14/2009)
I agree that his comments are exaggerated, but they arent to far off, considering our grid is already a joke.
In regards to the plugging cars in at locations in the northern hemisphere, the electrical pull from those are quite minimal, as i live in AK.
Does a lot need to happen in the area of infrastructure before we can truly have 15 million electrical cars available for purchase, yes.
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John 9:08PM (3/14/2009)
he is right in a sense, it will take a good number of years for EV's to become a proper part of the market share, but countries are more then ready for ev's right now with a little bit of work and a little bit of grid upgrades. ev's are here to stay now, i only wish they were here to stay back in the 90's when development was pushed forward kicking and screaming, imagine where we would be today if they actually were serious back then, vw will not be left behind any time soon but if they dont start investing in ev's and range extended diesel based ev's they will fall behind
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mister nomer 11:15PM (3/14/2009)
Jeremy says: "Further, Jacoby suggests that emerging markets like China and India will take the longest to eschew fossil fuels."
Somehow I'm guessing he's right about the power grids in these developing countries and their readiness (or not) for millions of EVs.
Plug "tangled power lines" into Google image search and see what you get.
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jharlan 11:34PM (3/14/2009)
A million tinkerers are converting old cars to electricity in their garages(mostly using old lead acid batteries) as we speak, because the market is failing to satisfy demand. The Germans are on the cutting edge of ICE development and have made some remarkable advances particularly in modern diesel technology. That doesn't mean there aren't engineering EV offerings as quickly as possible, in spite of what they are saying publicly, because we know the demand is there, and satisfying market demand means increased market share which means profits.
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Lad 12:25AM (3/15/2009)
The only trouble with the million or so people turning out Pb powered cars is the cost when they deplete the batteries...hurry up with the long-life. long-range, fast-charge LiFePo Nanofrezizod batteries will ya!
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Sir.Vix 1:35AM (3/15/2009)
something tells me that the CEO of VW doesn't seem to think that more power plants will be built in the future as general electric demand goes up...
They say that owning a Volt costs as much energy as having a constantly plugged in refrigerator. Would the world go insane if 50 million people over the course of 10 or 20 years started using more electricity to the equivalent of having ONE new refrigerator in their home? No. It's also no secret that human electrical production and consumption rise together with time. (which isn't necessarily related with population or pollution levels, moreso technological reasons).
I definately agree with poster #1
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Micheal 11:11AM (3/16/2009)
I know that getting and keeping a new refrigerator would be cheaper for me than feeding this gasoline powered hunk sitting in my driveway. Electricity might double before it wouldn't be cheaper than gasoline fuel. Once people actually figure out that the grid is cheaper (for now) the electric car may become popular.