VW of America CEO Stefan Jacoby recently spoke out about his opinion and the company's point of view on plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.
According to Jacoby, the technology is simply not ready for the masses yet. There are cost hurdles in the way and although VW and Audi will look into applying these technologies, they do not see them as profitable or affordable to the general public within the next decade.
The statement from Jacoby came last week as he spoke to media in Seattle. According to Jacoby, the problems for these vehicles are all related to the batteries. Mass, capacity, and cost of batteries remain to be hurdles in the way of their success. He went on to explain that right now you can't have all three desirable traits of a battery. You can have two of the three such as low mass, and low cost, but not high capacity.
The company does expect plug-in and electric vehicles to become increasingly common, but they do not believe we will see them replacing traditional cars in a large scale until the issues surrounding batteries can be resolved.
VW and Audi are expected to release several hybrid vehicles in the next few years, but they remain intent on optimizing their current gasoline and diesel powered vehicles until the market and battery technology is ready for plug-ins and full EVs.
Source: The Car Connection
