[SexyBeast]

ID4 not selling well in China as VW hoped... China: Volkswagen ID.4 Gets Reality Check After Slow Sales Start

I'm looking forward to receiving mine later this year. But I think the tech/software issues have kept Chinese buyers away as there are plenty of decent EV options in China with decent tech.

This might be a good wake up call for VW execs to invest more in tech/software. If they want to be a world class EV sales leader - they need to get those software updates right & get them out there ASAP! The general consensus from nearly everyone is that the ID4 is a comfy & smooth ride, but the tech/UI is lacking.

I would love a B mode option with one pedal driving (no creep); higher charging capabilities (175 kw on DC fast chargers). And please don't expect customers to pay extra for these services as monthly or yearly subscriptions. If I'm spending $50,000 - I want a car that works well from the beginning.

VW, the MEB vehicle platform with RWD is great design & engineering - don't fumble the ball at the two yard line! (sorry, that's an American football analogy - but I think the Germans will get it!)

 

[Doctor Zaius]

ID4 not selling well in China as VW hoped... China: Volkswagen ID.4 Gets Reality Check After Slow Sales Start

I'm looking forward to receiving mine later this year. But I think the tech/software issues have kept Chinese buyers away

Yeah, VW seems to have embraced everything about EVs except software. It's odd because these days software is vital regardless of whether it's an ICE or EV vehicle. And VW seems so bad at it -- beginning with their online ordering website (configurator). Some of these things seem like basic UI and programming issues that really shouldn't be a high hurdle in 2021. These days software should be considered as important as the vehicle itself. Having a nice suspension and a quiet ride isn't going to cut it going forward. VW needs to get their shite together on the software side like yesterday.

 

[Thenewgirl]

It's not the Infosys, most consumers don't get to that step and the Chinese ones has better tech than U.S. ones to start off with. It's just as EV car it's not as high tech or cool as Tesla or as cheap (and high tech) as Chinese brands. It's a boring car for a middle of road brand appeal to middle aged people.

I wouldn't worry about VW though, they will sell more under the Audi logo.

 

[SexyBeast]

It's not the Infosys, most consumers don't get to that step and the Chinese ones has better tech than U.S. ones to start off with. It's just as EV car it's not as high tech or cool as Tesla or as cheap (and high tech) as Chinese brands. It's a boring car for a middle of road brand appeal to middle aged people.

I wouldn't worry about VW though, they will sell more under the Audi logo.

Sales figures in US & Canada show VW outsells Audi more than 5:1

In Europe, similar production figures reveal same trend.

Not sure what figures are like in China for VW vs Audi.

 

[adamjcook]

ID4 not selling well in China as VW hoped... China: Volkswagen ID.4 Gets Reality Check After Slow Sales Start

I'm looking forward to receiving mine later this year. But I think the tech/software issues have kept Chinese buyers away as there are plenty of decent EV options in China with decent tech.

This might be a good wake up call for VW execs to invest more in tech/software. If they want to be a world class EV sales leader - they need to get those software updates right & get them out there ASAP! The general consensus from nearly everyone is that the ID4 is a comfy & smooth ride, but the tech/UI is lacking.

I would love a B mode option with one pedal driving (no creep); higher charging capabilities (175 kw on DC fast chargers). And please don't expect customers to pay extra for these services as monthly or yearly subscriptions. If I'm spending $50,000 - I want a car that works well from the beginning.

VW, the MEB vehicle platform with RWD is great design & engineering - don't fumble the ball at the two yard line! (sorry, that's an American football analogy - but I think the Germans will get it!)

Here is my take as a current roboticist and former automotive controls system engineer...

Referring to the content of the the original Reuters article, it seems that one of the core feature sets that Chinese BEV consumers are looking for is "advanced self-driving features" and the article claims that the VW ID.4 variants for China do not have them relative to popular local competitors.

However, it should be made clear that no automaker has "self-driving features" and in the case of Tesla, NIO and XPeng (and possibly a few other top Chinese automotive startups), only the illusion of self-driving features.

Tesla, NIO and XPeng all walk an extremely dangerous path in exaggerating the capabilities of their systems in order to, presumably, sell vehicles. They do so through refusing to adopting a robust, stereo-camera/infrared Driver Monitoring System (DMS) which, in its absence, allows owners to abuse their systems for the marketing benefit of "going viral" on social media. They also exaggerate their vehicle capabilities explicitly or implicitly in their marketing (by referring to them as "Level 2+ ready" or "autonomous" or "Level 4 capable" or "Full Self Driving").

In Tesla's case, most prominently, the lack of a robust DMS and the exaggeration of capabilities has already resulted in a few very similar deaths as contributing factors already.

All vehicles currently available for private ownership on the market anywhere in the world have automated driving features (also known as J3016 Level 2 features) where the human driver must always remain as attentive as if there are no automated driving features available on the vehicle at all.

Additionally, it is impractical for any vehicles purchased today to, someday, be "OTA-upgradable" to true "driverless" vehicles - which is another dangerous misrepresentation.

There is little question in my mind that VW and other incumbent automakers, who have decades of damaging safety-related scandal and fallout experience, would want to participate in this technological race to the bottom and lurid consumer deception. Startups and young automakers seemingly feel that they have to deceive and misrepresent in order to compete.

The other aspect of Tesla's, NIO's and XPeng's product is a tendency to mimic a smartphone in terms of the color palette/font sizes used, animated widgets that are displayed on the touchscreen and video games/web browsers/social media apps that are accessible while the vehicle is in motion.

The look and feel and the feature sets of smartphones are not designed for safety-critical systems and the mere availability of video games/web browsers/social media apps while the vehicle is in motion speaks for itself in terms of the Bad Faith engineering associated with many of these firms.

I am sure that a healthy set of consumers (Chinese or otherwise) might find all of the above appealing, but it is obviously not safe.

Keep in mind that we are at a 13 year high in roadway fatalities here in the United States with driver distraction being a top cause.

This is not really meant to defend VW or anything because VW has been open about it in-house software issues, but again, I see a dangerous race to the bottom in the Chinese automotive market (perhaps globally) and I am deeply concerned that incumbent automakers will be forced to participate in it. This article solidifies those concerns.

Sincerely,

Adam J. Cook

Disclosure: I hold no financial interest, in, for or against, any automaker.

 

[Lxtruong]

Notably VW also switched to a direct to consumer model in China with its MEB cars (ID.4/ID.3) and I wouldnt be surprised if there are growing pains associated with that as well.

 

[krusshall]

Two months does not a trend make. Come back in two years.

 

[SexyBeast]

Here is my take as a current roboticist and former automotive controls system engineer...

Referring to the content of the the original Reuters article, it seems that one of the core feature sets that Chinese BEV consumers are looking for is "advanced self-driving features" and the article claims that the VW ID.4 variants for China do not have them relative to popular local competitors.

However, it should be made clear that no automaker has "self-driving features" and in the case of Tesla, NIO and XPeng (and possibly a few other top Chinese automotive startups), only the illusion of self-driving features.

Tesla, NIO and XPeng all walk an extremely dangerous path in exaggerating the capabilities of their systems in order to, presumably, sell vehicles. They do so through refusing to adopting a robust, stereo-camera/infrared Driver Monitoring System (DMS) which, in its absence, allows owners to abuse their systems for the marketing benefit of "going viral" on social media. They also exaggerate their vehicle capabilities explicitly or implicitly in their marketing (by referring to them as "Level 2+ ready" or "autonomous" or "Level 4 capable" or "Full Self Driving").

In Tesla's case, most prominently, the lack of a robust DMS and the exaggeration of capabilities has already resulted in a few very similar deaths as contributing factors already.

All vehicles currently available for private ownership on the market anywhere in the world have automated driving features (also known as J3016 Level 2 features) where the human driver must always remain as attentive as if there are no automated driving features available on the vehicle at all.

Additionally, it is impractical for any vehicles purchased today to, someday, be "OTA-upgradable" to true "driverless" vehicles - which is another dangerous misrepresentation.

There is little question in my mind that VW and other incumbent automakers, who have decades of damaging safety-related scandal and fallout experience, would want to participate in this technological race to the bottom and lurid consumer deception. Startups and young automakers seemingly feel that they have to deceive and misrepresent in order to compete.

The other aspect of Tesla's, NIO's and XPeng's product is a tendency to mimic a smartphone in terms of the color palette/font sizes used, animated widgets that are displayed on the touchscreen and video games/web browsers/social media apps that are accessible while the vehicle is in motion.

The look and feel and the feature sets of smartphones are not designed for safety-critical systems and the mere availability of video games/web browsers/social media apps while the vehicle is in motion speaks for itself in terms of the Bad Faith engineering associated with many of these firms.

I am sure that a healthy set of consumers (Chinese or otherwise) might find all of the above appealing, but it is obviously not safe.

Keep in mind that we are at a 13 year high in roadway fatalities here in the United States with driver distraction being a top cause.

This is not really meant to defend VW or anything because VW has been open about it in-house software issues, but again, I see a dangerous race to the bottom in the Chinese automotive market (perhaps globally) and I am deeply concerned that incumbent automakers will be forced to participate in it. This article solidifies those concerns.

Sincerely,

Adam J. Cook

Disclosure: I hold no financial interest, in, for or against, any automaker.

Thanks for your insight! I really appreciate it. I agree that distracted driving is a major issue these days. I’m not even sure I feel entirely confident/comfortable with level 5 full autonomous driving - for many of the reasons you point out.

I’m not looking for level 5 autonomy in the ID4, or a more slick smartphone interface. I want the laggy interface to be smooth, and a few features like: no creep, one pedal driving, higher DC charging rate, plug & charge with Electrify America/Canada, ID light working in synch with Apple Car Play for navigation directions via Google or Apple Maps, ability to add hardware like HUD in North American market for a small fee.

 

[Thenewgirl]

Sales figures in US & Canada show VW outsells Audi more than 5:1

In Europe, similar production figures reveal same trend.

Not sure what figures are like in China for VW vs A

Sales figures in US & Canada show VW outsells Audi more than 5:1

In Europe, similar production figures reveal same trend.

Not sure what figures are like in China for VW vs Audi.

Audi is part of luxury brands and if Chinese consumers are going to buy an EV from legacy brands, it's more likely they'll buy from the luxury brands.
VW's ID4 is just stuck in the middle not quite comparable to the strength of others.

BTW I have an ID4. And I read Chinese, what I said before are from Chinese social media: weibo, little red book, 汽车之家。

 

[adamjcook]

I’m not even sure I feel entirely confident/comfortable with level 5 full autonomous driving

J3016 Level 5 is not remotely possible right now and likely will never be possible. J3016 Level 5 has an unbounded ODD (operational design domain) which, by definition, is such that the vehicle (without a human driver present at all) can handle the dynamic driving task without any design-based weather, time-of-day or geographical restrictions.

There is currently no imaginable pathway to achieve that (despite Tesla's/Musk's assertions otherwise).

The best, imaginable autonomous system that may be available to many of us is J3016 Level 4 which, crucially, has ODD limits that usually constrain the driverless vehicle to a certain geographical area or route. Typical examples of J3016 Level 4 systems include Google's Waymo, GM's Cruise or Ford/VW's Argo.AI.

Therefore, you need not have any trust concerns with a Level 5 vehicle.

I’m not looking for level 5 autonomy in the ID4, or a more slick smartphone interface. I want the laggy interface to be smooth, and a few features like: no creep, one pedal driving, higher DC charging rate, plug & charge with Electrify America/Canada, ID light working in synch with Apple Car Play for navigation directions via Google or Apple Maps, ability to add hardware like HUD in North American market for a small fee.

Certainly these requests are reasonable and, perhaps, are influencing Chinese buyers. I would like them too on my ID.4. Having witnessed the extraordinarily talented in-house production software groups associated with VW and a few other automakers when I was industry, I am pretty confident that incumbent automakers can successfully challenge themselves on the consumer software-side.

That said, I think incumbent automakers, again, have safety-related concerns on the software and vehicle systems side that do force them to go considerably slower than a hungry, scrappy startup.

As I often say on Twitter and Reddit, automotive startups, so far, seem to be "good at software", but bad at safety-critical software.

In that vein, I think what VW is building behind-the-scenes (so-called vw.OS) is far more technically impressive than what Tesla has "underneath" their vehicles today (i.e. the software that drivers do not "see"), but it will take some time (again, not to really defend VW per se).

Sincerely,

Adam J. Cook

 

[Nai3t]

Looking at lists of top selling cars in China, and their average prices, I'm not sure where the ID.4 body style or price is supposed to fit in to their market.

Of course, their's is a huge market, so even a small piece of the pie could produce worthwhile sales numbers. But it appears that there isn't much of a market for mid priced mid sized SUVs.

VW is going to need to work to convince buyers they need this vehicle?

 

[igniztion]

There's probably a very good reason the ID.6 is touted in China, and nowhere else.

 

[Huey52]

Audi is more popular in China and the 'L' long-bodied variants in particular for their larger back seat volumes. In fact the A8L was mostly designed-intended for the Chinese market.

 

[Fahrer]

Some of the the software issues folks are reporting with the ID.4 also apply to the newly released ( in the EU) VW GTI. Laggy software and troublesome "buttons" are a common complaint. The upcoming Audi Q4 etron addresses some of the issues listed by the OP. Audi uses different software for interface and actually has adjustable regeneration. In addition, the interior and exterior styling are significantly better, in my opinion. It is also about 1 inch lower so handling should be a bit better. The price is expected to be only about $5K more. I am interested in the ID.4 but will wait for the Q4 to come out before I make a decision.

Regarding China sales, the Chinese car market is largest, most competitive car market in the world and consumers there have many choices and can be quite particular when shopping. The last time I checked there were about 80 brands of cars available there. I think the issue there for the ID.4 is that it does not look like a $50K car. There are a number of choices there for BEVs there that do not exist in the US.

I think the Q4 will do better there than the ID.4.

 

[krusshall]

Some of the the software issues folks are reporting with the ID.4 also apply to the newly released ( in the EU) VW GTI. Laggy software and troublesome "buttons" are a common complaint. The upcoming Audi Q4 etron addresses some of the issues listed by the OP. Audi uses different software for interface and actually has adjustable regeneration. In addition, the interior and exterior styling are significantly better, in my opinion. It is also about 1 inch lower so handling should be a bit better. The price is expected to be only about $5K more. I am interested in the ID.4 but will wait for the Q4 to come out before I make a decision.

Regarding China sales, the Chinese car market is largest, most competitive car market in the world and consumers there have many choices and can be quite particular when shopping. The last time I checked there were about 80 brands of cars available there. I think the issue there for the ID.4 is that it does not look like a $50K car. There are a number of choices there for BEVs there that do not exist in the US.

I think the Q4 will do better there than the ID.4.

It's not a $50k car.

The VW ID.4 X has made its official market debut in China. The electric car produced by VW with its partner SAIC is now available in China in six variants at prices ranging from 199,900 to 272,900 yuan (equivalent to around €25,900 to €35,300) after subsidies.

 

[krypto kat]

...the illusion of self-driving features...

.....it is impractical for any vehicles purchased today to, someday, be "OTA-upgradable" to true "driverless" vehicles - which is another dangerous misrepresentation.

...automakers seemingly feel that they have to deceive and misrepresent....

Signed up just to upvote your post. Tried making these points on other sites, only to be ridiculed and vilified.

 

[krusshall]

Signed up just to upvote your post. Tried making these points on other sites, only to be ridiculed and vilified.

Resistance is futile...the cult of Tesla strong they are.

 

[Fahrer]

It's not a $50k car.

The VW ID.4 X has made its official market debut in China. The electric car produced by VW with its partner SAIC is now available in China in six variants at prices ranging from 199,900 to 272,900 yuan (equivalent to around €25,900 to €35,300) after subsidies.

Perhaps in China but the Buicks, Audis, Volvos and other brands made there are also cheaper than they are here. It is all relative. Again, China is a bigger and more competitive market than the US so yeah, prices are lower. GM sells more cars in China than they do in the US but they do not make as much money there. Also VW sells more cars in China than in Germany and I am sure profitability suffers as well due to lower prices. So I do believe that the ID.4 is looked at as too expensive vs. the perceived product position in the market. .

 

[krusshall]

Perhaps in China but the Buicks, Audis, Volvos and other brands made there are also cheaper than they are here. It is all relative. Again, China is a bigger and more competitive market than the US so yeah, prices are lower. GM sells more cars in China than they do in the US but they do not make as much money there. Also VW sells more cars in China than in Germany and I am sure profitability suffers as well due to lower prices. So I do believe that the ID.4 is looked at as too expensive vs. the perceived product position in the market. .

I think the issue there for the ID.4 is that it does not look like a $50K car.

Don’t know where you’re going with all this. Merely pointing out that it doesn’t look like a $50k car because it’s not a $50k car!

 

[SexyBeast]

Don’t know where you’re going with all this. Merely pointing out that it doesn’t look like a $50k car because it’s not a $50k car!

in Canada it’s about $50K, which is equivalent to approx $40K US.
But it seems to be a little bit cheaper in China.