[Tiliqua]

Totally different country but the same experiences. All my vehicles are Audi except for the ring in VW but they are all from the earlier era. I don't find any of the new offerings to be worth the money or to be enjoyable to drive. If you can keep them on the road and with the very mild weather conditions contributing to long body life, the earlier ones are right on my sweet spot for cars.

 

[Viking Lady]

Seems now VW is changing focus to the electric vehicles but wont be “in the real market” until their 2024 models come out. Sad. Their designer have probably been working on electric for a while already and shutting the door on real quality vehicles.
when will they be bringing back horse and buggy days to reduce pollution? I sold my horses years ago. Will the price for horses be going up? I know the price of hay is skyrocketing already. I dont know any covered wagon builders. Oh no, will I be forced to stay home for lack of transportation in the next few years. Yikes

 

[Tiliqua]

Shanks pony!!! There is a potential business begging here with the collection of the by product of this high quality hay for those who will be growing their food at home while they have no where to go.
Why does this seem like days of Yore?

 

[Chippy12]

VW ambitions started many years ago with cars like the Phaeton and Touareg. I personally like Jeremeys take on the Phaeton VW Phaeton
Since the years have past VW ambitions changed direction and instead decided to go mainstream and sell in volume to compete with Camrys and such. Thats when the Passat went to hell.
Since then with events like diesel gate, and now e-cars, VW still around but clearly the market has softened in the US. Interesting to poke around and see the cars that VW offers in China including the Touareg and other luxury models.

 

[ValveCoverGasket]

Seems now VW is changing focus to the electric vehicles but wont be “in the real market” until their 2024 models come out.

Based on what? You can buy nearly half a dozen different trim levels of the ID4 today. And quite a few versions of it's platform mates as well.

 

[Viking Lady]

Based on what? You can buy nearly half a dozen different trim levels of the ID4 today. And quite a few versions of it's platform mates as well.

really? An ID 4 maximum range between charges is what? About 250 miles. Have fun on adventures and off roading with that. My adventures are 6-700 miles a day. So that 250-ish miles between charges does NOT come close to my vehicle needs.
and speaking of the ID 4. I rode in one and it is so uncomfortable - geeze wouldnt want to take an adventure in those seats either let alone leg room, cargo room etc etc. I prefer not to feel like I am riding in a toy. I gave up my toy cars decades ago when my age was in single digits.

2026 VW Scout (wait new company Scout Motors a company under VAG) is supposed to come in 2 versions - pickup truck and SUV. Truck? VW Truck? In USA? Unheard of - right. Perhaps its a dream. Amrok never really made it to USA but they allowed agricultural use only Amroks. New Scouts are supposed to be off-road capable electric.
Scout Motors Official Website

 

[Dannyboy485]

ID4 is for people that spend most of their time in city traffic, which is the perfect place for them. Not like the 10% or less of truck owners that actually use their trucks for their intended purpose instead of being pavement queens.

Test drove an ID4, while it isn't an exc line touareg comfortable, it's not trying to be. Because it doesn't come with touareg price point. It's an affordable daily for the vast majority. And running costs are next to nothing. A big plus for the vast majority.

I'm a heavy duty diesel mechanic and I welcome change such as electrified cars.

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

I'd rock (and could easily get by with) an e-golf or ID4 or whatever for my daily commute\routine\majority of needs..... they just aren't financially feasible so I stick with 2 ICE vehicles in the driveway instead.

 

[Dannyboy485]

I'd rock (and could easily get by with) an e-golf or ID4 or whatever for my daily commute\routine\majority of needs..... they just aren't financially feasible so I stick with 2 ICE vehicles in the driveway instead.

Had a 2018 E-golf for 5 days while my jetta was getting damage repaired from a hit and run which I asked very nicely as a loaner. Only option it didn't have was the digital cockpit. The heat pump is soooo nice in cold weather and it was quite peppy for a small single motor. Only thing I didn't like was the usual mk7 fat ass compliant base seats. Zero support

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

I could live with all that eco feel stuff.... I just can't see ROI on a 50k EV...... ever....

 

[Dannyboy485]

I could live with all that eco feel stuff.... I just can't see ROI on a 50k EV...... ever....

Holy... they were selling them for $30k with 20k on the clock here. After the pandemic it shot up

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

I don't know what they go for, but I just looked up the entry level ID4 and it's 45k before tax.... no incentives over here either.... so that's 50k out the door...... and I'd still have slow charger if it even comes with one.... I couldn't look at it long enough to clarify if you get some normal plug in cord to charge for 30hrs at home or if you need to have $1k+ of dedicated charger installed on top, etc.

That kind of coin buys a lot of dino fuel at any price... and covers a lot of the other repairs that come with an ICE.

 

[gazaflash]

3 or 4 years ago the government was giving you $12k -$14 k ( I think…) if you were buying a new electric car. I briefly thought about the eGolf! My wife didn’t like the idea … on the other hand, I was just thinking of the cash back🤑! We settled on the GTI instead for her!

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

Even if that rebate was still a thing.... rough 1 min calculations tell me I spend about $4k in fuel a year based on current prices\driving patterns\amounts over the last 4 years..... so even if we assume that I could charge the EV for free due to whatever, and having one would completely eliminate my diesel costs, it would still take me a full decade to break even.

No matter how liberal I try to be with my math, the EV never makes sense.... not at what it costs to get into it....

 

[Dannyboy485]

E-golf was $30k , yes ID4s are $50k.
VWs only saving grace is they have nowhere near the same amount of battery fires as Tesla, GM and Hyundai/Kia. They've got that right

 

[casioqv]

I leased a 2016 Egolf for a few years. It was a year old slow charge model they couldn’t get off the lot, so they basically gave me a new car for free. I want to say the lease payments were about $60 a month after rebates, a tiny fraction of what I spend on parts for my Touareg. It was a good car, I regret not taking the $10k lease buyout option. Plenty of range for city use, coupled with also owning a TDI for road trips, it was perfect. A virtually zero maintenance car- even the brake pads would probably last 400k miles due to regen.

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

Pretty sure it was more like $36k, and even back in the day when the incentives were around, it would've still taken over a decade for your typical driver to break even...... now, if you don't already have a vehicle, and need to get into one regardless, the math looks a lot better.... or if you drive way more than the average bear but still within the EV's typical range...... there's a lot to consider

Review: 2017 Volkswagen e-Golf | Canadian Auto Review

Forget diesels or gasoline, this is the Golf to get. By: Calvin Chan | Canadian Auto Review

www.canadianautoreview.ca

 

[casioqv]

The e-Golf is very underrated, an excellent car you can still find for under $15k used, and it will still only have about 20k miles because you can't drive too much with only 80 miles range, lol. People don't seem to even notice they exist, nearly every article I've seen on the ID.4 mentions it as VW's first EV. In fact VW has almost always made a small number of EV versions of the Golf/Rabbit platform, starting with an electric MK1 Golf in the 70s, as well as electric versions of the MK2 and MK3.

I spend about $4k/year on diesel fuel, plus another $1k/year on parts for maintenance of my TDI Touareg. So a used e-Golf charging free from the solar panels I already have on my house would pay for itself outright in about 3 years, assuming it effectively displaced all of the mileage of the Touareg.

Of course, that wouldn't really be the case because the Touareg would probably still need about as much maintenance if not more if it sat around getting driven less, and I'd still spend at least $1k/year on fuel for it on road trips... so in reality I'd guess the e-Golf would pay for itself in 5 years by saving me $3k/year in fuel. Only problem is I already have three cars and nowhere to park another one, lol.

 

[SaVAGeSoot]

Get one.... up here, a used one can be had for 25k... maybe......
No solar panels on my house, and insufficient sun at night when I would be plugged in even if solar was there....
But even IF it did save me that $3k a year, I still need 8 years to break even before I start "saving" money... by then, the battery on it will be poo.....

Hard PASS for me.

 

[ValveCoverGasket]

My adventures are 6-700 miles a day. So that 250-ish miles between charges does NOT come close to my vehicle needs.

Then I think youre likely to be disappointed by any of the coming EV offerings as your use case is unique.
If you want to get an idea of what the scout stuff will cost, and how capable it might be, check out the specs on the rivian. Expensive and probably peaking at around 300ish miles.
Off road capability is diametrically opposed to efficiency, and you can overcome that with a giant battery but that costs a ton of money, obviously.