Sounds like a man threatened by his lack of vision.

i don't think so,

soon we will get 400km of range by a 150kgr fuel cell system in B-Class car;

or 3,5-4,5l/100km from ICEngines

how will EV's compete? in cost? range? :))

maybe speed ...

Remember just a couple of years ago they were laughing at Toyota for investing in the Prium. People said the same thing - they're too expensive, blah blah blah, they'll never sell. Well, the market has spoken!
Consumers are fed up with high gas prices and polluting cars.
People are champing at the bit, waiting for EV's.
Remember too, it doesn't have to be 100% EV, hybrids with a larger battery pack will do the job and behave as full EVs for commuting while using the backup ICE for long distances, yielding vastly more cost effective driving for most consumers.

oops, of course, I meant Prius. Apologies for poor typing.

These are words we do not want to hear.
But probably more true than we'd like.
All the more reason to pursue all avenues: (not in any order)conservation, efficiency, drilling, Hybrids, wind, solar, shale....

The main constraint on batteries is everyone in the know expects a drastic downturn.. aka holy bleep. As such none of them want to overextend. Right now its far better for most of them to chop jobs and cut back and bunker down and do techworks on what to make AFTER things recover.

Moronic. Argument from personal incredulity--nothing more. For the head of research at a major auto manufacturer, it's the ultimate "can't do" status quo attitude. Is that what R & D has come down to? Pardon me for expecting a little forward thinking. But it doesn't matter. Market incentives (plus non-market goals like the battery x-prize) will make a mockery of such stupidity and blatant pessimism.

One way or the other the marketplace will sort it out. If the claims being made by battery suppliers can be demonstrated in service, it might be sooner. Still, I like that Hybrids & Plug-In hybrids provide an industrial "growth path" to BEVs. Depending on how fast technology matures and scales up, energy prices, and public policy - this could be fast or slow.

Considering that over 20,000,000 cars are manufactured every year then the ability to manufacture billions of large lithium cells still needs to be built up.

The USA is trying to back out of the Electric Car business, with hopes of Hydrogen and now NGV.

Now we see the Germans capitulating on this product.

Guess it is up to the Chinese ... they seem ready to make the profits involved in changing world transportation.

John,

the fact that climate change will no longer be the centerpiece of energy independence does not mean anyone has to back out of electrification. That will happen because petro fuel will remain costly. People want to plug in rather than pump their energy.

And don't forget major manufacturers like Tata and Zap who will likely blow away Chinese attempts at an electric car.

Zap?!? ... you might want to pick a horse with some credibility.

Yes, it is a little pessimistic of VW. For cheap EV batteries check out the Ultrabattery - a conventional (well, sort of) lead acid battery combined with an Ultracapactitor. CSIRO is the Australian national research organisation, no minor research organisation. www.csiro.au/news/UltraBattery.html

@ Lou R & OldNeil ... It looks a lot like India will be the biggest competitor to China in the Electric car market.
check out the ZAP X & ZAP Alias.

But China is the leading horse in this race. They have batteries.

If within 2-3 years there are radical advances in technology like the promised ZENN-EEStor vehicle, and EEStor lives up to its hype, and gas prices stay really high, you will have a much higher percentage of EV's on the road in 10 years....more like 40-50%.

The Germans have placed thier bets on the wrong horses, such as hydrogen and Diesel. I assume that in 25 years about 50% will be EV. (scooters and small cars about 80%).just see how many battries plants are built in China, Japan and Korea.

anon: ZAP has been a world record holder for press releases and shiny pictures of cars they wish they could produce ... and thats about it.

zvir: I'm seeing lots of encouraging signs that the Germans are getting beyond their diesel paradigm. They're just late to the party. They are essentially correct that the ICE can still learn plenty of new tricks and can be improved, but it's a dead end.

All this R&D manager said was that BEVs, underline BEVs, are some decades from 10% market share.

Some readers can't read.

I'd agree too. HEVs will become more prolific, and PHEVs will join them. Both will be very large market shares, while BEVs are still a tiny niche piece.

Realistically, BEVs need a magnitude improvement in battery technology; which means at least one or maybe two new chemistries, beyond Li-Ion.

The brief quote above does not fairly describe the VW vision for motoring in 20 years time.
The url for the VW 2028 vision is:
http://www.volkswagen.com/vwcms_publish/vwcms/master_public/virtualmaster/en2/experience/innovation/volkswagen_2028.html?action=no

or just follow the link from the volkswagen.com home web page to VW International.

The VW 2028 vision has 3 themes:
1. Sunfuel®: Synthetic fuel from biomass.
2. Engine evolution: TSI then CCS ICE.
3. EVs: ICE-HEVs, FC-HEVs & BEVs.

01. Sunfuel®: fuel from biomass.
Unlike first-generation biofuels such as rapeseed-based
biodiesel, it is not just the fruit or seed that is suitable for conversion into fuel — it’s the whole plant. This means the plant can also still be used for food production. All that’s used for fuel generation is what used to be waste products, e.g. stems and leaves.

02. Combustion engines: evolution, not revolution.
Further optimisation of engine technology will make a
fundamental contribution to the configuration of sustainable mobility. In today’s engines, this optimisation is achieved (amongst other things) by downsizing, i.e. the fuel is burned in engines that are increasingly smaller in size but are increasingly more efficient, e.g. a modern TSI engine.

The next stage in this development is the CCS
combustion process, which combines the advantages
of the homogeneous fuel-mixture generation of a
petrol engine and the efficient self-ignition of a diesel engine.
The CCS engine unfolds its full potential if it is run
with special fuels such as SunFuel®.

03. Electrical vehicles: more fun with electricity.
The bridging technology to the zero-emissions electric
car of the future is the hybrid concept, consisting of a combustion engine and electric engine. A combustion
engine runs the vehicle for long distances that cannot
otherwise be covered, due to the limited storage capacity of the current batteries.

In the next step, the combustion engine is used as a range extender. It does not drive the vehicle over longer distances; instead, it charges the batteries for the electric drive. The extremely low-volume and efficient engines used here can burn SunFuel®

The zero-emissions electric car of the future will be run by a high-performance battery. Power will initially be supplied by an on-board power generator, the fuel cell.

Once more efficient batteries with sufficient storage capacities have been developed, there will no longer be any need for the fuel cell. The car will then be able to draw its energy from the solar-powered outlet in the home carport.

Polly, hopefully Professor Leohold will better understand the rabid nature of the press the next time he speaks with them.