Volkswagen has been in a bit of a pickle lately, with declining sales leading to threats of factory closures and major restructuring plans. Now, at a works meeting at its Wolfsburg headquarters, it’s teased the car it hopes will help turn things around.
That car is a compact EV with a targeted entry price of around €20,000, or around £16,700 at current exchange rates. We don’t know a whole lot about what it’ll look like beyond the shadowy teaser picture that shows what seems to be a little hatchback with boxy features and a thin, shiny black ‘grille’ motif. An earlier teaser, shown off when the car was first announced last year, hinted at a side profile not too dissimilar to VW’s brilliant Up city car.
VW entry-level EV teaser – side
What we do know, however, is that it’ll be based on an evolved version of the VW Group’s MEB electric platform, set to underpin various other small EVs from the group’s family of brands. These include production versions of the VW ID2all, Skoda Epiq and Cupra UrbanRebel, all unveiled during the past couple of years.
Further down the line, there’ll be an all-new EV platform called the Scalable Systems Platform (SSP). That’ll serve as the basis for all-electric future generations of important VW models like the Golf and T-Roc.
VW ID GTI concept
From VW, it’s the production version of the ID2all – likely just badged ID2 – that we should see first. It’s due to arrive next year as a roughly Polo-sized hatch and start in Europe at around €25,000, or about £20,800. It could also get a sporty version, previewed by the ID GTI concept.
The smaller, cheaper EV, meanwhile – VW hasn’t announced a name, but ID1 seems like a shoo-in if it’s still using the ID badge for its electric cars by then – will arrive in production guise in 2027, and should be poised to fight cars like the Fiat Grande Panda, Hyundai Inster and upcoming Renault Twingo. We’ll see it properly previewed in concept form at the beginning of next month. Will it be the car VW needs to get itself on track?
