Volkswagen has confirmed £17,000 ID 1 as entry-level Electric Vehicle. Subscribe to Electric Vehicle News Bitesize Podcast for FREE to hear more!
The small Electric Vehicle will be based on an unknown platform and will be similar in size to the current Polo.
Volkswagen is “full steam ahead” on the sub £17,000 electric ‘ID 1’ due around 2027 and will take on the new ID 2all, although brand boss Thomas Schäfer admits hitting the target price is a huge challenge.
The new entry-level Volkswagen will be the smallest model in the brand’s range of bespoke electric cars and will use a new platform developed by the Volkswagen Group in a Skoda-led project.
Meanwhile, the recently revealed ID 2all, the yet-to-be-released VW crossover, the Cupra Urban Rebel and the entry-level Skoda crossover will all be based on VW’s MEB Entry platform. When the project started, the goal was to produce a car that would cost less than £17,000, although the target price has since risen to £22,000.
The front-wheel-drive MEB Entry platform will enable lower-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the planned economies of scale should help reduce costs significantly. VW has several teams working on making cheaper electric cars, Schaefer said, likely focusing on the economies of scale that the VW group can achieve.
Schaefer admits that building an electric car that can be sold for £17,000 profitably is “not at all an easy task”. He added: “Now we can do a lot in terms of economies of scale. In our VW brand group, besides Cupra and Skoda, we have four models. This volume will help us drive down prices to be competitive and make money at the same time.”
Speaking about the future model, Schäfer confirmed that “we’re also working on a vehicle below £20,000 that will be even a bigger challenge. It’s part of our DNA where Volkswagen has also a commitment that we all have to embrace and we’re working on at full steam ahead. In the next couple of months we will be reporting on this.”
The new ‘ID 1’ will be broadly similar in size to the combustion-engined Polo and could potentially take that nameplate, in the same way that Volkswagen is planning to use the Golf and Tiguan monikers for future EVs. Schäfer said: “The Polo is very successful and one of our icons, and we’re going to use that vehicle concept in the future as well. Whether we use the same name of the vehicle we don’t know yet. We’re currently working on those iconic names into the future to make sense of the product line-up.”
Schaefer added that the company is looking at a “hybrid” nameplate, suggesting the model could bear the ID Polo badge.
The machine will likely share some powertrain and battery technology with the ID 2all, which will sit on the MEB Entry platform. This model comes with a 231hp front motor and a choice of 38 and 56kWh batteries. To hit its £17,000 target price, it’s likely to use a smaller battery that uses more affordable lithium iron phosphate technology.
No new machines will be built in Spain alongside the MEB Entry model, and a production location has yet to be determined, Schäfter said. He noted that it may be difficult to produce machines in Europe that meet the target price. One option could be to explore production in countries like India, where Skoda is leading the group’s efforts, a major focus.
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