PHEV system no help to VW crossover's local prospects

Volkswagen’s CrossBlue plug-in hybrid SUV was developed with the US market in mind, but Volkswagen Australia is looking closely at it as well.

The German giant’s local managing director Anke Koeckler and her colleagues will head Wolfsburg shortly to map out future product plans and make it known there’s likely a place for the CrossBlue in Australia if it makes right-hand drive production.

Volkswagen rolled out the CrossBlue as a concept at the Detroit motor show in January, but with production all but confirmed the car barely warrants the title. A showroom version is expected to be approved in the very near future and there is strong speculation the company will manufacture the seven-seat crossover in Tennessee.

Larger than the mid-size Tiguan and full-size Touareg but priced between the two, the all-new crossover hails from VW’s new MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten, aka Modular Transverse Matrix) transverse FWD platform to be shared across several upcoming group products such the upcoming Golf 7, Audi’s next A3 and the Skoda Octavia.

The concept heralds a major move in Volkswagen’s plans for three per cent of all units sold globally to offer plug-in power within five years, as part of the company’s Strategy 2018 world leadership roadmap.

Hence its sophisticated diesel-electric PHEV drivetrain using a 2.0-litre TDI engine up front and dual electric motors, the larger one mounted on the rear axle.

Power goes to ground via the company’s signature DSG dual-clutch transmission hitched to an electric AWD system it calls “propshaft by wire”. The electric motors draw power from a 9.8kWh lithium ion battery pack stretching up the centre tunnel.

All up, the highly flexible, multi-mode package is good for a claimed 228kW and 700Nm of torque - sufficient to get the CrossBlue to 100km/h in just over seven seconds and on to a top speed of around 200km/h.

The company claims an all-electric range of up to 23km, extending to 1050km once the oiler cuts in. It’s capable of all-electric (rear) or all-diesel (front) drive, plus several modes combining the two.

It’s frugal, too: European fuel consumption testing has shown the car is capable of returning just 2.1L/100km using both, or 6.7L/100km in diesel mode.

But it’s also complex and costly, so ever the vehicle ever makes these shores the PHEV system will not be the drivetrain of choice for Volkswagen Group Australia, which would need a conventional petrol- or diesel-powered version priced from well under $50,000 to be competitive with the likes of Ford’s Territory and Toyota’s Kluger.

VW’s current internal costings put the production cost of a PHEV or EV powertrain at about five times that of a conventional powertrain. Executives from the company’s electric powertrain division estimate it would take 10 years or more to rein those costs in, even leveraging the efficiencies resulting from the MQB platform.

All of which makes it even more expensive to service a tiny market like Australia, with no consumer carrots or legislative sticks pushing to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, of the kind that exist in Europe and the US.

Resistance to premature electrification
Ms Koeckler says VW has no plans to follow Mitsubishi (i-MiEV), Nissan (LEAF) and Holden (Volt) into the sub-embryonic local market for all-electric vehicles.

“The political and commercial environment, the infrastructure would have to change dramatically for us to even consider it,” she said. “In Germany and the US we have huge teams working closely with governments to get ready the market for such technologies, but even there it takes years. Don’t expect electric cars to be ready to fulfil today’s mobility needs for a long time.”

Perhaps reflecting her company’s broader viewpoint on the issue, she’s unequivocal on the matter of sluggish sales worldwide. “What did they expect? The technology is not yet either customer convenient or affordable. [The industry] has a lot of work to do on it before it’s ready for market.”

For the foreseeable future, the focus Down Under is on ever more efficient petrol and diesel engines. The company has spearheaded the downsizing trend with products like the twin-charged 1.4-litre petrol four in the base 118 TSI Jetta.

Not that Volkswagen is short of vehicle electrification IP and technology. Rather, it’s remained relatively quiet worldwide amid growing noise on the matter over the last five years (notwithstanding luxury sub-brand Audi’s vociferousness on the subject, at least until recently hanging up its gloves until further notice).  

In Australia, it plans to remain so for some time, even as it ramps up activity overseas with concepts like the CrossBlue and the all-electric Golf Blue e-motion, due out in Europe in late 2013 and in the US by 2014.

In the US and Europe, it appears the company is ready to raise its public profile on electrification. For example, it recently opened up its normally heads-down Electronics Research Laboratory in California (ERL) to US media to talk about its electrification strategy.

If it has its way and succeeds Toyota as the world’s biggest car-maker by 2018, current growth estimates suggest it will need to sell around 300,000 EVs and PHEVs a year. The US-focused CrossBlue would make an important contribution to that end; success there can only delay its transition to RHD and therefore its arrival here, even with the MQB platform set up for manufacture at plants around the world, including China.

In the US, this will translate into a yardstick EV range of about 55km and a little less – about 50km – in European and Asian markets.

Questioned on the trajectory of battery development, Dr Krebs and his colleagues are not banking on any eureka moments any time soon. Instead, he suggested the industry will achieve “perhaps a doubling of capacity” over some years through an “evolutionary” process.

He added that he finds it hard to predict with any accuracy the expected downward trajectory in battery costs.

“We do not understand the cost level today,” he said, adding that he didn’t believe shifts in the cost of consumer electronics cells are necessarily an accurate pointer to those in the automotive sector.

Dr Krebs and his colleagues suggested it’s not safe to predict future sales with the technology in its current state. “We really don’t know, but we see more and more people willing to switch over, more people trusting the technology. It will not be a mass market at first, but we have so many cars already. We need to make electromobility fascinating.”

And, it seems, more practical. Dr Krebs pointed to his own experience during a year in the e-Golf, pointing out that while it’s good for around 50km on a charge around town, turning it on to an autobahn halves that, “even at moderate speeds”.

Until further notice, this effectively relegates the EV to a secondary role among the vehicles in most consumers’ garages.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…