Nokia was the go-to cell phone giant, and no one imagined a world without it, especially its leaders. And then the iPhone and Android smartphones arrived and within a few years, the Finnish company has almost disappeared from the earth’s surface. Is it the same fate that awaits Volkswagen, the automobile giant and undisputed number one for several decades in Europe?
As with Nokia in 2007, it may seem silly to think about it today, but that’s what fears Herbert Diess, the managing director of the Volkswagen group. Faced with the emergence of electric, autonomous and connected vehicles on the Tesla model, old-fashioned cars built around an internal combustion engine could experience the same fate as cell phones and smartphones.
Volkswagen is well aware of the need to evolve and the ” Dieselgate Certainly played like an electric shock for the German giant. The vehicle electrification plan is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious and comprehensive in the industry and the manufacturer hopes to become number one in the electric sector in the coming years.
For this, a whole range of products is in preparation, in all segments, from the e-Up and its cousins at Seat and Skoda sold for less than € 20,000 to the Porsche Taycan, which is approaching 200,000. Many projects are under development and Volkswagen will notably present a whole range of “ID” vehicles, designed from the start for electric vehicles.
But electrification is only part of the equation and perhaps not even the most important. The cars of the future will also be computers, above all, permanently connected and capable of driving on their own. The ID Buzz mini-van should be used for advance in the field of autonomous driving, with commercial experiments planned for 2022. More generally, the software will become the central piece of the puzzle and be aware that this is not enough to solve all the problems.
Volkswagen can testify, its ID3 which is due to be released in the coming weeks is late because of software which is not finished and which will need to be installed by hand on the first vehicles to leave the factories. The company hopes to have finalized this part in May, and only then have the infrastructure to provide updates remotely.
” The era of traditional car manufacturers is over “Says Herbert Diess, stressing that Volkswagen will have to evolve to survive. With these words, he is preparing his group for probably painful changes: abandoning research on hydrogen in favor of electricity and probably serious savings to come, especially in Germany. And despite all this, it is not even sure that this is enough:
The big question is: are we fast enough? If we continue at the current rate, it will be very difficult.
Volkswagen at least has the advantage over Nokia of being aware of the problem. This is not the case for everyone in the industry, starting with Toyota, which has often been the biggest car salesman in the world and who still refuses to believe in this transition into a new world. Japanese company will have no choice, European requirements will force it to electrify its range, but it still does backwards.
And even if the historic manufacturers follow the path traced by Tesla to offer electric and connected cars, they will still have a few points to settle. Starting with the question of fast charging, essential for long distances. And on this point, the Californian has also taken the lead with its network of superchargers, present almost everywhere and which allows inexpensive recharging. In Europe, the Ionity network comes closest to the idea, with terminals placed along motorways that can provide up to 350 kW.
On paper, this is the ideal answer, especially since the initiative is supported by several major car manufacturers, including Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler or even Ford and Hyundai. Except that the charge may be fast, it will not be at all cheap with the new tariff which will take effect at the end of the month.
Ionity will now charge the charge at € 0.79 per kWh, or around sixty euros to fully charge an ID3 with the largest 77 kWh battery. Knowing that this model displays 550 km of theoretical autonomy, this amounts to paying a good ten euros for 100 km. It’s more expensive than a thermal car like the Volkswagen Golf and it’s not good news to convince. For comparison, the current price in France on the Tesla network is € 0.24 per kWh.
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