VW brand joins Audi in ending combustion engine development

This just sounds like VW Group have made a strategic decision to stop ICE development and they are letting each subsidiary announce it separately. Perhaps Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini will take longest to admit it?<p>Edit: VW Group already has a <i>huge</i> range of petrol engines:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_Volkswagen_Group_petrol_engines" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_Volkswagen_Group_petro...</a>

An electric motor is way simpler than an ICE. Even controlling it electronically to increase its performance, efficiency and response should be easily doable with simple MCU&#x27;s. There&#x27;s no reason we should accept electric cars with complex computers running complex unfixable proprietary software that only the vendor has access to the source code and is updated over-the-air without owner&#x27;s consenting.<p>Cars may become the next walled garden.

I can&#x27;t help recall that scene in the iRobot movie with Will Smith where he pulls an ICE motorcycle out of storage and the other person he&#x27;s with reacts with incredulity at the idea of sitting on top of explosions.<p>It was mildly amusing back then (2004), now it seems inevitable.<p>Also, if you haven&#x27;t read the books, the iRobot stories are great. A quick read and maybe even a good exercise in humility for folks.

I&#x27;m a big fan of electrics cars, but maybe the demise of the ICE is greatly exaggerated?<p>I get the feeling petrol cars will be cheaper than electric cars for the low end of the market for a long long time.

The wording of the article title gives the impression that they will stick with the engines they have got. Really they are just going to develop the engines they have and not design from scratch any new engines.<p>A new engine from scratch rarely happens. Many engines can be traced back decades with there never being a new design, just iterative improvement.<p>Can anyone think of a new engine developed from scratch? Without any parts carried over?<p>I suppose this happened when VW built the Veyron.

I&#x27;m 100% for doing everything we can to reducing the environmental impact of ICEs. I try to live minimally and reuse everything I can everyday to reduce my personal (negative) impact on the environment.<p>With that said, I can&#x27;t help but wonder if the significant majority of our cars become EVs and the batteries for them are made using rare earth metals and more importantly, are recycled poorly afterward, what&#x27;s the added benefit of switching to EVs (in other words, what&#x27;s the sweet spot like how many years would one need to use his&#x2F;her EV to offset the environmental impact of batteries used in EV)?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Environmental_aspects_of_the_electric_car" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Environmental_aspects_of_the_e...</a><p>If anyone has a credible study comparing on the net positive impact on the environment by transitioning to all EVs compared to say ICE, I&#x27;d love to read that. Thanks in advance!

On one hand I&#x27;m sorry to see the tooling and expertise disappear. But perhaps it&#x27;s (long past) time?

They said development. Not production or sales. Truth be told all the low hanging fruit with combustion engines was gobbled up back in the 80s and 90s with the advent of EFI. Since then it has been diminishing returns. The engines of today are about as clean as they could be without an insane amount of additional development. These manufacturers will be happy to keep selling their current ICE engines for years to come and devote the lions share of their R&amp;D budgets to electrification efforts.

I’m pleased with this, but it does remind me of Red Barchetta by Rush.

&gt; Depending on which regulations are ultimately applied, the outlook for internal combustion engines could change dramatically once again – all the way to a scenario that makes it almost impossible to still register internal combustion engines after 2025<p>This is prescient. Government regulations in this particular area will continue to be revised as it becomes clearer that the shift to electric cars is happening rapidly, and it&#x27;s obvious that this is the only lever in the fight against climate change. We wouldn&#x27;t even know where to start when it comes to tackling the emissions from steel and cement (1&#x2F;3rd of all greenhouse emissions).<p>In September 2020 California banned the sale of ICE cars past 2035. In a couple of years, that&#x27;ll change to 2030 or sooner. Most car manufacturers know this and some, like VW, are planning accordingly.

&quot;VW makes vague promise.&quot;<p><i>None of the executives specified a definite date for when they would exclusively produce electric vehicles. Previous targets saw the VW Group launching the last combustion engine platform in 2026, then running until 2040.</i>

Grain of salt and all that:<p>&gt; In an exclusive interview, brand CEO Ralf Brandstätter said, “At the moment, I <i>do not expect a completely new engine family</i> to be launched.” Still, <i>he wants to develop the engines currently in use</i> and prepare them for new emissions standards such as Euro 7<p>So no, they are not ending ICE development. They <i>continue</i> development.<p>As to what &quot;a new family of ICE&quot; means is anyone&#x27;s guess.<p>An, of course, this:<p>&gt; Depending on which regulations are ultimately applied, the outlook for internal combustion engines could change dramatically once again<p>So, ending, but not really ending, and the outlook may change again.

Are there any large companies considering doing a turbine electric hybrid? Plain turbine cars were actually done 50 years ago and Jay Leno’s garage has one and he’s actually built one. Even one of Tesla’s co-founder (Ian Wright) has a startup doing this. One advantage is that it can burn any fuel - hydrogen included. This can be practical for larger vehicles especially.

I&#x27;m a Tesla fan and love &quot;electro-mods&quot; - classics outfitted with battery packs - but this seems premature to me. There is 100 years of knowledge of these engines and moving to battery tech does not require quitting ICE entirely.

Honestly a lost opportunity. Hydrogen, lean running ICE engines with ethanol, opposed piston engines are all really doable options to offer ICE engines. Which are still important for higher speed travel and places where you can’t charge at night. Especially in Germany the charging problem exists and won’t be fixed for many years. The cars are constantly getting older here. And I can see why.

What&#x27;s going on?<p>Volkswagen AG (VOW) +199% in 12 month, +10,91% today.<p>Porsche (PAH3) +177,86% in 12 month, +8,50% today.

That would be news to me that VW actually had any engine in development by themselves. Last thing I heard were small customizations in their racing department. Before they could announce ending any engine development, wouldn&#x27;t they need to start one before?

first scrapping old but reliable cars with cash incentives to buy &quot;clean&quot; diesel. Then dieselgate pushing for gasoline powered cars and getting pennies on the dollar back. Now killing ICE alltogether. Not going to buy VW Group cars anytime soon.

China will produce most of the ICE vehicles. VW will simply buy a Chinese company, and hide behind a new &#x27;brand&#x27;. It&#x27;s cheaper to make things in China, ICE engines haven&#x27;t changed much in two decades. Also, ICE engines aren&#x27;t going anywhere, it&#x27;ll just be too hard to make money building them, as China ramps up production. Much like N.America lost out to Japanese cars in the 1980s, now they&#x27;ll lose out to Chinese ones.