VW Neo (eGolf replacement)

Old diesel · 18-12-2018 8:53pm

So let me see - that's liquid cooled battery, 180 ps and we should be able to expect the normal well sorted VW driving characteristics in final production.

Plus near 200 mile range....

At same price as current Golf diesel.

Nissan are really going to have to up their game considerably.

unkel · 18-12-2018 9:51pm

Old diesel wrote: »

So let me see - that's liquid cooled battery, 180 ps and we should be able to expect the normal well sorted VW driving characteristics in final production.

It's better than that. 150kW (204bhp), 125kW charging and indeed well sorted VW driving, this time with RWD! And for budget money too.

The eGolf was already a good EV, even though it was not even a dedicated platform and it was too expensive. Third best efficient EV on the market after Ioniq and i3

Neo should be a really good car. If VW can produce the numbers, it will be a proper game changer

SaintsYB · 18-12-2018 11:31pm

unkel wrote: »

It's better than that. 150kW (204bhp), 125kW charging and indeed well sorted VW driving, this time with RWD! And for budget money too.

Not sure where you're seeing 204bhp. It's been said to have 180ps as Old diesel has said.

Ryath · 18-12-2018 11:44pm

SaintsYB wrote: »

Not sure where you're seeing 204bhp. It's been said to have 180ps as Old diesel has said.

Video earlier said 150kW good chance they'll offer it in a range of power outputs depending on package and battery you go for.

Nedved85 wrote: »

Video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLDls0kcAHs

Shefwedfan · 19-12-2018 11:13am

Ryath wrote: »

Video earlier said 150kW good chance they'll offer it in a range of power outputs depending on package and battery you go for.

The entry range will have less power than the long range version. This was confirmed by VW many months ago

What they will end up being is up for discussion

unkel · 19-12-2018 11:56am

Even 180BHP in a RWD EV would be a lot of fun - it's more than a BMW i3

samih · 19-12-2018 11:57am

As said before: The I.D. models will cause lots of sweating and sleepless nights for the competitors now that VW have secured good supply of batteries. Building the MEB platform that is made for BEVs is the only way to go to make sure packaging and cooling amongs the other parameters are just right. Well done for BMW for getting it right the first time with i3.

Nissan and Hyundai should take a note how it's done properly. Especially Nissan although at least the battery location is saneish. The Hyundai's approach of battery hanging out of it's rearside is just plain ugly. Kia is doing a good job with e-Niro I hear similarly to Soul which has always used the battery under the cabin floor approach but they still have too much space wasted in the front due to redundant space for the ICE.

liamog · 19-12-2018 12:03pm

samih wrote: »

Nissan and Hyundai should take a note how it's done properly. Especially Nissan although at least the battery location is saneish. The Hyundai's approach of battery hanging out of it's rearside is just plain ugly. Kia is doing a good job with e-Niro I hear similarly to Soul which has always used the battery under the cabin floor approach but they still have too much space wasted in the front due to redundant space for the ICE.

The battery for the e-Niro has the exact same underhang as the Kona. I'm not sure any of them can classed as hanging out of the rearside.

samih · 19-12-2018 12:15pm

liamog wrote: »

The battery for the e-Niro has the exact same underhang as the Kona. I'm not sure any of them can classed as hanging out of the rearside.

I suspect the Kona EV has totally different rear floorpan from the ICE version and "hang out" was a slight exaggeration from my part but the battery pack largely under the boot floor is not a pretty sight on the lift. It also robs a lot of boot space.

Are the battery packs on Kona and Niro similar in shape and placement? I have heard conflicting information about it.

unkel · 19-12-2018 12:17pm

samih wrote: »

Nissan and Hyundai should take a note how it's done properly. Especially Nissan although at least the battery location is saneish. The Hyundai's approach of battery hanging out of it's rearside is just plain ugly

Battery is done properly in Ioniq, which was designed as an EV - well actually as a triple setup as petrol hybrid, PHEV and BEV. There are no charging issues at all

Kona is just an ICE converted to EV, which isn't obviously the way forward. We need more dedicated EV only platforms like the MEB

Nissan on the other hand have been building dedicate EV platforms for a decade. Inexcusable that they messed up the cooling on their latest EV!

Mike9832 · 19-12-2018 12:21pm

unkel wrote: »

Even 180BHP in a RWD EV would be a lot of fun - it's more than a BMW i3

Even 150 in RWD would be fun

Leaf40 pulls pretty hard with its 150 and wheels spinning

samih · 19-12-2018 12:48pm

unkel wrote: »

Battery is done properly in Ioniq, which was designed as an EV - well actually as a triple setup as petrol hybrid, PHEV and BEV. There are no charging issues at all

Kona is just an ICE converted to EV, which isn't obviously the way forward. We need more dedicated EV only platforms like the MEB

Nissan on the other hand have been building dedicate EV platforms for a decade. Inexcusable that they messed up the cooling on their latest EV!

The battery placement under the rear seats/boot on IONIQ is good for efficiency allowing a slippery shape but bad for boot space and partially also for the rear headroom as Hyundai had to raise the rear seat more than would be ideal. Compered to a pure BEV platform there is also lots of space wasted in the engine bay.

The LEAF is just a mess compared to modern ones like a MEB but as I said at least the battery is where it should be. But the execution LEAFs lot to be desired. If they redesigned the floor not to have such a huge "transmission" tunnel the rear seat would be much more comfortable. Insidentally the said tunnel would be a good way to run either air ducting or coolant lines to the battery. Maybe the first one is what will happen with the L60?

Anyway, MEB platform seems just about perfect for a BEV. Mimise space at the front, cram the battery in the middle at the bottom of the car.

unkel · 19-12-2018 1:01pm

samih wrote: »

But the execution LEAFs lot to be desired.

Shefwedfan · 19-12-2018 2:31pm

I am just wondering, how heavy will the Neo be, they have used steel in the frame of MEB platform as it is cheaper....not lighter.....

I would think it won't be a car you can pull to far in on an Irish back road or you might never get yourself out

Mike9832 · 19-12-2018 4:12pm

Shefwedfan wrote: »

I am just wondering, how heavy will the Neo be, they have used steel in the frame of MEB platform as it is cheaper....not lighter.....

I would think it won't be a car you can pull to far in on an Irish back road or you might never get yourself out

Seen 1500kg for the 48kWh quoted few times

Probably 1500-1700kg, smallest to biggest battery pack

Old diesel · 19-12-2018 4:23pm

Once the efficiency and performance is good and the car drives well I wouldn't panic on the weight.

For prospective our family farms 1995 Daihatsu Fourtrack weighed in (short wheel base commercial) at 1495 kg or thereabouts. Just under the 1500 kg unladen weight for an every 2 years DOE test back in late 97/early 98 when we bought it.

Over 1500 = it would be yearly.

Nothing to worry about

Edit we don't own the Fourtrack anymore

Shefwedfan · 19-12-2018 4:50pm

Old diesel wrote: »

Once the efficiency and performance is good and the car drives well I wouldn't panic on the weight.

For prospective our family farms 1995 Daihatsu Fourtrack weighed in (short wheel base commercial) at 1495 kg or thereabouts. Just under the 1500 kg unladen weight for an every 2 years DOE test back in late 97/early 98 when we bought it.

Over 1500 = it would be yearly.

Nothing to worry about

Edit we don't own the Fourtrack anymore

I don't expect the weight having any effect on the performance. VW already said they switched to steel because it was cheaper and performance would not be an issue

I think it was on a Bjoern video that the Kona was 1700kg or so, if the Neo is using steel you would expect it to weight more with a similar sized battery pack

samih · 19-12-2018 6:02pm

The last thing VW should do in a volume model to use aluminium. I can't actually think of any budget aluminium cars apart from mark 1 Audi A1 from 90's and the reason is the cost that Audi included. You have to spend A8 money normally for an aluminium body.

grogi · 19-12-2018 6:05pm

Mike9832 wrote: »

Even 150 in RWD would be fun

Leaf40 pulls pretty hard with its 150 and wheels spinning

One would need much more than 150bhp to spin rear wheels...

unkel · 19-12-2018 6:43pm

samih wrote: »

I can't actually think of any budget aluminium cars apart from mark 1 Audi A1 from 90's

I take it you mean the A2? It was expensive to buy and iirc VW made a loss on every single one of them. So I agree with your point they shouldn't make the Neo from aluminium.

What's the point anyway? Who cares if it is going to weigh 1500kg or 1700kg? With all of the torque available from zero and at least 180BHP it is going to be plenty fast off the line

Shefwedfan · 19-12-2018 7:43pm

unkel wrote: »

What's the point anyway? Who cares if it is going to weigh 1500kg or 1700kg? With all of the torque available from zero and at least 180BHP it is going to be plenty fast off the line

Even been down a back road in Ireland and met someone and you pull in on the verge....

With the weight in these types of cars I think it is something to note, you could fairly quick dig yourself into a bit of bother

Not a car either for going to a festival and parking in a field....you could be their for a week :P

samih · 19-12-2018 8:58pm

unkel wrote: »

I take it you mean the A2? It was expensive to buy and iirc VW made a loss on every single one of them. So I agree with your point they shouldn't make the Neo from aluminium.

What's the point anyway? Who cares if it is going to weigh 1500kg or 1700kg? With all of the torque available from zero and at least 180BHP it is going to be plenty fast off the line

That's the one, A2, thanks Unkel. Yes, on a BEV weight doesn't matter as much due to regenerative braking and the fact that the heavy batteries are low down the chassis. And that torque.

grogi · 19-12-2018 10:39pm

samih wrote: »

That's the one, A2, thanks Unkel. Yes, on a BEV weight doesn't matter as much due to regenerative braking and the fact that the heavy batteries are low down the chassis. And that torque.

The mass impact performance - acceleration and breaking - regardless if that's BEV or ICE.

Where it does not matter as much is efficiency of an BEV. Doubling the mass of an ICE kills the efficiency of it. Doubling the mass of an BEV have much smaller effect.

Silent Running · 20-12-2018 8:53am

grogi wrote: »

The mass impact performance - acceleration and breaking - regardless if that's BEV or ICE.

Where it does not matter as much is efficiency of an BEV. Doubling the mass of an ICE kills the efficiency of it. Doubling the mass of an BEV have much smaller effect.

Yep, once you get the mass up to any speed, the regenerative braking recovers a lot of the kinetic energy stored in the moving mass. ICE cars just lose this energy as heat in the brakes.

unkel · 20-12-2018 12:53pm

Silent Running wrote: »

Yep, once you get the mass up to any speed, the regenerative braking recovers a lot of the kinetic energy stored in the moving mass. ICE cars just lose this energy as heat in the brakes.

And once you get the mass up to any speed, it doesn't really matter what weight the car is in fuel consumption. The weight adds a bit to the rolling resistance, but that's only a fraction of total energy used

Ryath · 20-12-2018 1:33pm

I'd say the Neo will be a good bit lighter than the other options. They'll probably claim 1500kg and it will weigh about 1600kg. That's still about 100kg less than the 40Kwh Leaf. The VW MQB platform car's were 100kg plus lighter than their previous generation version and most of the rivals. The T roc 1ltr petrol is 50kg lighter the kona 1ltr

The extra torque is certainly helping the Kona EV it's much faster than I realised The Kona is well ahead of the i3 despite weighing 300g more and having a almost identical power to weigh ratio. It's close enough up to 100kph but after that the Kona is well ahead.

I'd hope even in the entry level version the Neo will match the Kona for performance it certainly will handle a lot better.

Kona vs i3
http://www.zeperfs.com/en/duel7609-5481.htm

Plus all the other usual suspects
Leaf II, e Golf, Ioniq, and Model 3 which wipes the floor with everything!
http://www.zeperfs.com/en/match7609-5481-6939-7256-6659-7083.htm

The Leaf II ain't actually far of the i3 performance wise it does't drive or handle any way as well though!

Mike9832 · 20-12-2018 2:29pm

Ryath wrote: »

I'd say the Neo will be a good bit lighter than the other options. They'll probably claim 1500kg and it will weigh about 1600kg. That's still about 100kg less than the 40Kwh Leaf. The VW MQB platform car's were 100kg plus lighter than their previous generation version and most of the rivals. The T roc 1ltr petrol is 50kg lighter the kona 1ltr

The extra torque is certainly helping the Kona EV it's much faster than I realised The Kona is well ahead of the i3 despite weighing 300g more and having a almost identical power to weigh ratio. It's close enough up to 100kph but after that the Kona is well ahead.

I'd hope even in the entry level version the Neo will match the Kona for performance it certainly will handle a lot better.

Kona vs i3
http://www.zeperfs.com/en/duel7609-5481.htm

Plus all the other usual suspects
Leaf II, e Golf, Ioniq, and Model 3 which wipes the floor with everything!
http://www.zeperfs.com/en/match7609-5481-6939-7256-6659-7083.htm

The Leaf II ain't actually far of the i3 performance wise it does't drive or handle any way as well though!

Ioniq badly needs a power upgrade, gets mauled past 80

Kona is quick

Walks away from a 320D

40-140 in 11secs is quick

Water John · 20-12-2018 2:57pm

Mike, I see a review of the Mazda MX5 a few days ago. I think that's what you should look at. It would be my petrol buy if I wasn't focussed on EVs.

Mike9832 · 21-12-2018 12:22am

Water John wrote: »

Mike, I see a review of the Mazda MX5 a few days ago. I think that's what you should look at. It would be my petrol buy if I wasn't focussed on EVs.

MX5 with the Kona drive train would be my thing now as well

Man that Kona can shift

EV hot hatches will be insane

CDBWhoop · 21-12-2018 10:39am

Now that we know a little more about the Neo and the battery options available, what price do we see it starting at in dealerships when it launches here?
I've seen €25k mentioned but can't imagine this is anything other than wishful thinking at best and more likely just an attention grabbing headline figure.

So realistically, what is the entry level bog-standard model likely going to cost. Will it be close to the headline €25k figure or will it be closer to €30k or even €35k?

VW Neo (eGolf replacement)

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