Geneva Motor Show - German carmakers are shifting their focus towards high-end electric vehicles such as the Audi R8 e-tron and away from cheap city cars, in the latest effort to revive environmentally-friendly but unpopular zero-emission vehicles.
Audi unveiled an emission-free version of its €165 000 (R2.13 million) R8 at the Palexpo Centre that can drive 450km before needing to recharge, which takes less than two hours.
It marks a new departure for Audi, which has agonised over whether to launch a range of electric vehicles.
Battery-powered cars have failed to live up to their initial hype, with drivers put off by the slow rollout of recharging stations, and limited range - despite generous sales incentives in some markets.
Because the batteries, cabling and cooling systems for electric cars cost more than a conventional combustion engine, electric vehicles have struggled to gain widespread acceptance among price-sensitive customers, particularly if the same model is available at a lower price with a more conventional powertrain.
However, US maker Tesla, which produces cars with a price starting at $77 000 (R910 000) has had notable success with electric cars.
LIMITED RANGE
A premium price-tag enables the carmaker to install a larger battery which would be uneconomical in a cheap car, giving the vehicle a range of more than 400km on a single charge. In smaller electric cars, the operating range is limited to around 100km until costs come down.
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said in Geneva one of the reasons electric cars had failed to gain traction was because they tended to be in the cheaper vehicle segments.
“As proven by Tesla, there can be a market at the other side of the range as well. If that is a possibility, we are investigating,” Zetsche said, hinting the company's luxury Mercedes brand may be working on an electric limousine.
The electric car industry might still gain traction, but it would take time, Zetsche added.
“This is an industry where the cycle takes 14 or 21 years to become really strong and relevant,” he told reporters.
Ulrich Hackenberg, head of research and development at Audi, said on the sidelines of a Volkswagen event in Geneva that for electric cars to gain widespread acceptance, the price of batteries needed to fall below $100 (R1180) per kilowatt hour - but he wouldn’t say where battery prices were currently.
Bernstein Research analysts estimate electric vehicle battery pack costs are about $400 per kWh today, and may drop to $180 by 2025.
TREADING CAREFULLY
Audi has been reluctant to embrace electric cars, arguing it was better to make diesel cars cleaner or focus on hybrids that combine battery power with a combustion engine.
It flirted with an electric R8 sports car in 2009, promising a thrilling performance but an underwhelming range of 215km. It wasn't enough, and Audi dropped the concept in 2012, the year rival Tesla's Model S came out with double the range.
The new R8 e-tron's battery capacity, however, has almost doubled to 92kWh from 49kWh in the aborted 2012 model, a source close the matter said.
That has helped more than double the range of the carbon-fibre vehicle which surges to 100km/h in 3.9 seconds, compared with 3.2 seconds for the 540-horsepower model.
Audi may also launch two battery-powered productionl models by 2018, a sports car and a sports-activity vehicle with over 500 km of range to rival Tesla's upcoming Model X SUV.
However, analysts said Audi was treading cautiously, not least because it only plans to build the R8 e-tron by request.
PwC analyst Christoph Stuermer siad: “Such projects are no practicable means to leverage electric driving over the short term. They only help minimise the business risk.”
Sales of the R8 e-tron probably won't exceed 100 a year until 2022, research firm IHS Automotive forecast. By comparison, IHS expects deliveries of Tesla's Model S to grow 14 percent to 41 396 cars by 2022 from 36 364 this year.
Analysts said the R8 e-tron, Audi's first all-electric production car, could act as a “halo” product to draw customers to its showrooms and help it gauge interest in more battery-powered and hybridised cars.
While Audi has spent more than €100 million (R1.3 billion) to develop the model, there will be no fixed production costs because it will be custom-made, one company source said.
Nonetheless, Audi views the project as a step change.
Chief Executive Rupert Stadler said in January” “It's beyond any question that battery cars have become more important to Audi. I'm very happy that (R&D boss) Ulrich Hackenberg is stepping up the pace on electric cars.”
Reuters