Cars
Published on August 8, 2020 |
by Chanan Bos
August 8, 2020 due to Chanan Bos
There is something strange about the Volkswagen ID.4. The red has yet to be unveiled, yet the vehicle is slated to launch in Europe in 2020. In the US, the vehicle is intended to be released in early 2022 or late 2021 more than a year from now. Does that timeline still make sense?
Note: There used to be some confusion about the start dates of ID.4. The article has been updated to reflect that we are talking exclusively about the American factory.
An important piece of information brings a bit of a mystery. You see, according to the latest reports, 70% of the buildings needed to produce the ID.4 in the US are already in place, as well as part of the production line. This is a main detail.
Tesla Model Y Timeline
The Model Y was unveiled on March 15, 2019, something I remember well because I was personally at that unveiled event. At the moment, and this is what people may have forgotten by now, the car had to start delivering to customers in late 2020, almost 2 years after the discovery. Let me pick you up now after October 15, 2019. I was actually the one who made the bold suggestion in this article that the Model Y would be released in Q1 2020 instead of Q4, at least 3 quarters earlier than Tesla had initially said (and was still on at the time record). We had a source at Giga Nevada who revealed some details that would set the Model Y up for a Q1 release. Besides that, about the exact same time (October 14, 2019), the image below this paragraph came out with multiple Model Y prototypes on a truck.
In the comments of that article at the time, I also said that the only way Tesla could have made that was as much prototypes as most of the production line, about 70-90%, was already. This story is one that no other journalist at the time believed. Not one of the other news websites picked up the story. Even our very own Zachary Shahan followed up with an article saying I was probably a quarter of an hour away production was expected to start in Q1 based on the leak, but deliveries were not mentioned).
On March 1, however, a few trucks full of Model Ys left factory grounds, and only a few days in advance, customers could choose a delivery date, starting March 15th. After all the drama of the production hell with the Model 3, the press now praised Tesla endlessly for releasing the Model Y so soon, and also for delivering more than promised instead of the reverse.
Remembering that prior, and Giga Shanghai hit expected timelines, we were accustomed to hearing overly optimistic timelines from Elon Musk – who always speaks what lies on his mind and is seen by many as honestly to blame. This even went so far as to point out that “Elon Time” became a general term to represent the CEO’s overly ambitious timelines, leading many to suggest that the company is pushing more in a short time frame, even if they miss impossible deadline. However, when Elon Musk said he would ship Model Y to customers in late 2020, he separated internal goals from public ones. The early deliveries of Model Y, as a result, were somewhat extraordinary.
Where ID.3 & Model 3 enter
Now we come to the Volkswagen ID.3, Volkswagen’s first next generation car, in many ways no different than the Model 3 was for Tesla. Although the Volkswagen ID.3 did not go ‘through the production hell’, it seems clear that it was passed on through a bug-infected ‘software hell’ that has expanded to this day. It’s a really exciting product that has been so badly affected by software misery that it has shaken people’s confidence in Volkswagen’s ability to compete with Tesla and other motorists with a 21st century electric car that more computer than car.
In recent weeks, Volkswagen has essentially taken down its CEO, the one who led the company’s electrification efforts to the diesel gate, and also dropped its software for software, which seems to have no idea how the necessary software would work and said some pretty unconscious things that were confusing improvements via machine-learning AI for autonomy with improvements to user interface and software features.
Volkswagen ID.4
Volkswagen should definitely catch on for a while. This is where the Volkswagen ID.4 in the US finally starts to come into play. Elon has said that the Model Y, because it is a crossover instead of a sedan, will be Tesla’s most important product of all – the company’s highest selling car. The same is true for the Volkswagen ID.4, which will be the first next-generation electric car to be sold worldwide (the ID.3 will not be sold worldwide, and that was never in the plans).
Now, as you may remember, I threw away the beans at the beginning of this article. According to reports, 70% of the buildings required for the ID.4 in the US and parts of the manufacturing line have also been completed. Apples on apples, is it in exactly the same place when Tesla was in October 2019? Probably not exactly, but considering that Tesla only decided in July 2019 to build the Model Y in Fremont, I get the feeling that Volkswagen is not too far behind this important point.
So if you take the Model Y timeline into account, that could mean that the Volkswagen ID.4 in the US could start pre-production in Q1 2021 and deliveries in Q2 2021, instead of in late 2021 as beginning 2022 as the company has promised. If the company announces and / or launches the ID.4 in Europe shortly, then its American cousin (brother?) Could not be as far behind as we thought and as originally announced – “thus a spoken language” to attract a Model Y.
Volkswagen ID.4. Image without camouflage leaked from multiple Chinese websites.
Finally
There are some big questions right now. The first is: when will VW release or launch ID.4 in Europe? The second is: how far is Volkswagen with the production line ID.4 in the US? The third is considering what delivery date they will promise for the US at the event.
I have absolutely no doubt that if Volkswagen pulls a Model Y, the press will praise the company for days.
To conclude, the next most important sign of such a shift would be the sighting of prototypes of American ID.4 in the wild, and more than a dozen prototypes being detected at the factory site (at the American factory).
One thing is for sure: the ID.3 is already an exciting product that started Volkswagen’s next generation electric setup, but the ID.4 will be an affordable punch for the gut for the internal combustion engine, and is an even more exciting product.
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About the Author
Chanan Bos Chanan grew up in a multicultural, multilingual environment that often gives him a unique perspective on a variety of topics. He is always thinking about big picture topics like AI, quantum physics, philosophy, Universal Basic Income, climate change, sci-fi concepts like the singularity, wrong information, and the list goes on. He is currently studying creative media and technology, but already has degrees in environmental sciences, such as business and management. His goal is to discourage linear thinking, bias, and affirmation bias, while thinking out-of-the-box and helping people understand exponential progress. Chanan is very worried about his future and the future of man. Therefore, he has a great admiration for Elon Musk and his companies, especially because of their mission, philosophy, and intention to help humanity and its future. He sees Tesla as one of the few companies that can help us save ourselves from climate change.
