The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

VW ID.3: Volkswagen increases price for compact electric car

2022-12-02T12:43:33.671Z


Electric cars are becoming significantly more expensive, the latest example being Volkswagen's ID.3. State subsidies will soon disappear. Industry experts see difficult times ahead for e-mobility.


Enlarge image

The VW ID.3 was actually supposed to replace the Volks-Wagen Golf

Photo: Matthias Rietschel / REUTERS

It was Volkswagen's first real electric car: the ID.3, launched as a kind of Golf for the electric age of 2020.

The price for the basic version was originally supposed to be “below 30,000 euros” – as a signal that the masses can also afford the new drive.

However, the model is now significantly more expensive, as a look at the updated ID.3 configurator shows.

The list price for the basic Life model has been EUR 43,995 since December 1st, EUR 6,000 more than before.

This is reported by the electric mobility industry service Electrive.net.

Affordable alternatives with comparable performance are becoming rare.

Other manufacturers have also increased their selling prices for electric cars, Tesla several times this year.

The base version of the Tesla Model 3 is currently available for 49,990 euros, 10,000 euros more than last year.

In this way, the manufacturers enforce surcharges that even outweigh the lavish state subsidies in Germany.

Apparently they still find sufficient demand for their sales, also because the vehicles can still be sold more expensively to Scandinavia as young used vehicles for tax reasons.

For customers in Germany, however, the financial hurdles to switching to e-mobility are increasing.

In addition, the federal government will reduce the purchase premium by up to 3,000 euros at the turn of the year.

The innovation bonus is also limited to a fixed budget, so it is only paid while stocks last.

For new commercial registrations, it will be completely eliminated in September 2023.

In addition, the drastically rising electricity prices are also noticeable in the charging tariffs, which at least limits the advantage in terms of ongoing operating costs compared to petrol or diesel.

»Drought time for the electric car«

"A drought is on the horizon for electric cars in Germany," warns automotive expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Duisburg Center Automotive Research.

He expects the registration numbers and market shares of e-cars to collapse in the next two years.

Almost 400,000 fully electric new cars are expected for 2022, a good 15 percent of the total market.

By 2024, however, their share will drop to ten percent, while the market for the partially electric plug-in hybrids, which are no longer subsidised, will go to its knees.

At the earliest, according to Dudenhöffer, one can hope for more favorable effects in 2025: thanks to the more economical mass production of electric cars and batteries in Europe, and also thanks to electricity prices then falling again.

Until then, Germany will lose “important time in changing the mobility sector”.

The smaller and more compact the vehicle, the greater the negative price effect.

In the luxury class, on the other hand, the innovation premium is irrelevant anyway.

After all, Volkswagen is promising that ID.3s that have now been ordered will already be delivered in an improved version with a different design and better materials in the interior, which is to be presented at the beginning of 2023.

In any case, you have to be prepared for a long wait: If you order an ID.3 now, most variants of the vehicle will be delivered “not before the fourth quarter of 2023”.

The reasons for this are the supply situation with semiconductors and the existing order backlog.

The chips are also needed for cars with combustion engines.

Dudenhöffer explains that the supply crisis is hitting electric cars harder than petrol or diesel, mainly because of the increased prices for battery materials such as lithium, cobalt or nickel.

Since the end of 2020, German car manufacturers have been suffering from delivery problems, especially for semiconductors.

The situation for the industry has been gradually improving since October – which is reflected in sales.

The industry recorded 208,642 new registrations in October, as reported by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA).

That was around 17 percent more than in the same month last year.

The month-long decline in the number of deliveries has thus been stopped for the time being.

Sales of electric cars grew just as strongly as the market as a whole.

koe/ahh

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-12-02

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-25T15:34:56.986Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.