Orwell was on to something when he examined the mentality of certain kinds of people in a scene in his novel, 1984, wherein the character Parsons — who is described as one of those people who will eagerly swallow the most outrageous absurdity — expresses exultant happiness about Big Brother having increased the chocolate ration. In fact — as the novel’s hero Winston Smith understands perfectly well — the chocolate ration had just recently been reduced.
Maybe Parsons is working for ADC, which is a German roadside assistance company. Kind of like AAA. Anyhow, the company says it tested the battery pack in VW’s ID3 device and found that after 100,000 miles of driving, it only lost just shy of 10 percent of its capacity to hold a charge.
Italics added.
The ID3 is basically an “electrified” version of the Golf. VW does not sell this device in North America; it is a Euro-market only device. Now, a couple of interesting things about this device. The first being that it has only been available on the retail market since 2020 — and as everyone knows, that was the high-tide year of the (cough) “pandemic.” This is relevant because most people weren’t allowed to drive much that year. So, in real-world terms, the ID has only been on the road for about four years.
Most people drive their vehicles around 12,000 miles annually, but devices get used much less regularly — because they are devices. More particularly, because they are hard to drive long distances regularly on account of their synergistically compounding short range/long recharge times. Most device owners use their devices irregularly and for mostly local, short-distance driving. So their devices tend to accumulate fewer miles each year than most vehicles do. (RELATED: Longing for the Era of Economy Cars and Real Fuel Efficiency)
This means there’s not yet sufficient real-world driving data to establish the rate at which (and the extent to which) the ID3’s batteries lose charge capacity. But let’s look at what ADC discovered after driving an ID3 around for about four years.
The report says the device had only lost just shy of 10 percent of its original charge capacity. This was touted in much the same way that Parsons touted Big Brother’s increase (decrease, actually) of the chocolate ration. It is astounding in its insolent absurdity. Would anyone abide the loss of nearly 10 percent of the originally touted city/highway mileage of a vehicle after as little as four years of driving and just 100,000 miles (the latter figure being about middle-aged for almost any vehicle, which typically will run without suffering a major mechanical failure for at least 200,000 miles and 15-plus years).
No, they would not abide it. The government would certainly not abide it. There would be recalls and lawsuits. Not just over the loss of nearly 10 percent, either, but also because of what that loss portends.
Well, as regards devices.
Ask anyone who owns a device — a laptop or smartphone, for instance. What typically happens is the device accepts and holds charge for a time. Then the time comes when it begins to lose charge. Once this starts, it always gets worse. In no time at all, the device no longer holds any charge at all and is only usable if it is kept plugged in. That can work — for a device that does not have to move. That can be kept plugged in while it is used. But it does not work for a four-wheeled device. When it is plugged in, it cannot be used for its (putative) principal purpose; i.e., to transport people from one place to another place. At that point, the device is useless, in other words.
So, when ADC exults that only about 10 percent of the ID3’s original capacity to hold charge has been lost, it is not letting the marks know that only about 10 percent is just the beginning of the loss. What will it be after another year — or four? Let’s say it’s only 20 percent. That would amount to a loss of about 54 miles of driving range off the ID3’s new-device 272 miles of fully charged range, leaving 218 miles of driving range. And since the actual driving range you will typically get out of a device is often 10-20 percent less than indicated (sometimes even more than that), it isn’t really even 218 miles. Not 218 miles you can count on, at any rate. When driving an EV, it is always prudent to assume you have less range than indicated; otherwise, you may not make it to where you want to go.
Or where you could get more charge. Assuming you can get it there.
Back to the just-shy-of-10 percent thing. Even if it’s only that much — and even if it isn’t the beginning of more — it’s still a loss and so a gyp, just the same as Big Brother’s cutting down the chocolate ration. But — like Parson’s — we’re supposed to regard this as good news and smile with vapid enthusiasm.
It’s a measure of the extent to which what was once regarded in the West as a brilliant work of cautionary fiction has become a kind of literary documentary about what has become of the West.
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