Volkswagen Axes All Non-Electric Racing Programs Worldwide

wemay

wemay

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https://www.thedrive.com/news/31162/volkswagen-axes-all-non-electric-racing-programs-worldwide
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Volkswagen announced Friday that it will discontinue all of its motorsport activities outside of electric vehicles. The Volkswagen factory will no longer support racing efforts powered by internal combustion engines, which includes halting the development of a new Golf GTI TCR car. Because works racing programs largely exist to market a company's cars, it makes some sense that Volkswagen would want to shift the focus of its racing efforts to line up with its big electrification push. Per today's announcement, Volkswagen Motorsport will help develop new concepts based on the Modular Electric Drive Kit (or MEB for short) platform that underpins Volkswagen's ID. family of electric cars. Volkswagen has already proven that they're up to the challenge of building a fast EV, with the ID.R electric prototype setting records at Pikes Peak, the Nürburgring, Goodwood and on the Tianmen Mountain. Taking Volkswagen's roadgoing MEB platform racing feels like a logical next step..............
 
Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
Well on the bright side races will last only about 45 minutes. crackmeup
Or, one car can't race because they forgot to plug it in the night before. Friend of mine called me in the morning the other day said "Help! I forgot to plug the Tesla in last night, I need to leave now." Since EV's take so long to fill up, this will become a more frequent issue with drivers in the future. There is always Uber-Lyft I guess if that happens.
 
The individual running that company is a little out of touch I would say. There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option. Not everywhere is like most European countries with underground power cables instead of on wooden toothpicks on the side of the street, I guess no one told the head of VW this.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option.
Are you talking about Massachusetts, or somewhere a ways southwest of Nurnberg? LOL
 
We could do a great EV 24 hour race and limit charging to a single eu2200i generator at all pit stops. The excitement could be epic.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
The individual running that company is a little out of touch I would say. There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option. Not everywhere is like most European countries with underground power cables instead of on wooden toothpicks on the side of the street, I guess no one told the head of VW this.
I loved the i3 we leased for a couple of years; but we primarily used it for shorter work commutes. Still, I'd prefer a PHEV like the 330e. A 0-60 time in the mid-fives is a bit tepid, but the fuel economy is partial compensation. The US has a long way to go before it has anywhere close to an adequate infrastructure to support a significant EV fleet.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
The individual running that company is a little out of touch I would say. There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option. Not everywhere is like most European countries with underground power cables instead of on wooden toothpicks on the side of the street, I guess no one told the head of VW this.
After living 15yrs in the US, I still cannot wrap my mind around this.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
The individual running that company is a little out of touch I would say. There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option. Not everywhere is like most European countries with underground power cables instead of on wooden toothpicks on the side of the street, I guess no one told the head of VW this.
? VW sells roughly 10 times the number of cars in China than it does in the US, and 4 times as many cars in Europe as it does the US. The US' antiquated power grid is of very little concern to VW, nor should it be given its focus world-wide.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
The individual running that company is a little out of touch I would say. There have been 4 power outages here in the last 2 weeks, with a infrastructure similar to sub Saharan third world countries electric vehicles are not a real option. Not everywhere is like most European countries with underground power cables instead of on wooden toothpicks on the side of the street, I guess no one told the head of VW this.
Underground power has some very real limitations. It's cleaner, neater, more reliable, less efficient and immensely less capable.
 
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