VW says it wants to price its electric cars like diesels — autoblog.com

Before diesel became the Voldemort of fuels, buyers understood the nominal premium they paid for diesel's rewards. If Volkswagen maintains the same MSRP restraint with an EV, the automaker has a much better chance of powering its goal of selling 1 million EVs across the VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat nameplates by 2025. Doing the math on what this kind of pricing strategy could look like, we can examined the diesel price spread pre-Dieselgate. The 2015 Volkswagen Jetta 1.8T SE FWD with a five-speed manual ran $18,995, whereas the TDI SE FWD with a six-speed manual started $21,640, a 9 percent increase. The standard 2015 Touareg V6 Sport w/Technology AWD cost $48,755, while the Touareg TDI Sport w/Technology AWD cost $52,245, a 7 percent upcharge. If Volkswagen indeed has this kind of single-digit gap in mind, then its tagline for its coming EVs would prove true: "electric vehicles for millions, not millionaires."

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