Volkswagen suggests 'volume' electric car sales still some time away

Volkswagen has admitted it probably couldn’t profitably compete with Tesla’s 'volume' Model 3 and Nissan’s second-generation Leaf in today’s market.

Speaking to the media at the recent Polo launch, Dr Frank Welsch, Volkswagen’s director of development, there weren't currently enough buyers to sustain half a million E-Golfs per year, even if they could sell the upcoming MEB platform versions of the car today.

Volkswagen does currently sells an E-Golf, but its volumes are limited and it's squeezed onto a converted MQB platform, designed mostly for internal-combustion and hybrid powertrains. An all-new platform, designated 'MEB' and designed exclusively for the Volkswagen Group’s battery-electric cars, will arrive from next year as part of the upcoming I.D. family.

Asked if Volkswagen could sell half a million Golf-sized MEB battery-electric cars today, Dr Welsch wasn’t sure there is a market for them yet.

“Today, I’m not quite sure," he revealed. "For 500,000? It will take probably a couple of years because one thing you see is that customers have to get familiar with these electric cars.”

“It’s not easy to give concrete numbers. If you are asking for 500,000, I guess this will be 2021-22. That’s what I guess.”

Dr Welsch cited continued public uncertainty about range, recharging infrastructure and cost, plus fears over the complexity of the technology, as reasons why market demand hasn’t fully materialised. He also insisted that the 'at a profit' part of the question made it even harder to answer.

“The question was to sell 500,000 cars without losing money. We are going to sell without losing money, we have to make money. We are not other car companies,” he insisted, hinting at Tesla’s sustained losses on its sales.

“In the first step (with the current E-Golf) we didn’t make that much money, but we cannot as the brand ‘Volkswagen’ in this volume segment, sell 500,000 cars and burn money.”

Instead, Dr Welsch said BEV sales would build slowly until people became familiar with the technology and saw a critical mass of electric cars on the streets.

“The only thing people know is the range is too small, they are expensive, so they are not good for everyday use," he explained.

“We learn from our Golf customers two things: when you bring potential customers to drive an E-Golf for the first time, they say they didn’t expect it to be that good to drive. They like driving them because of the torque.

“And now with MEB cars we can explain the range is not theoretical anymore (we had 160km in the first generation MQB E-Golf, or in real life something much closer to 100).

“Having a range smaller than the quoted number doesn’t make you happy because you only drive for a while and have to plug in your car. This is not fun to drive, this is not easy going, and you will not get 500,000 people to buy such cars today.

“With the MEB these things are much better. Better range and much cheaper, but customers have to get familiar with this. They have to see these cars and see other people driving this.

“If they see enough of them on the street, the volume of people start to think this can’t be wrong. But this will take time.”