VW to ramp up EV strategy in five-year plan4 Mar 2023 15:20
Volkswagen’s come late to the electric car revolution, but since showing the ID Concept of 2016 it’s really started to get serious and is now a major player in the EV market. That concept became the ID.3 production car just three years later, and has laid the foundations for an entire ID range of electric VWs. Most of these are labelled numerically, but the ID. Buzz proves that Volkswagen isn’t limiting itself to that format.
VW’s switch to electric is hitting strides. In 2022, the brand sold 330,000 EVs – up by around 23 per cent over 2021. The new year will include the reveal of the new ID.7 saloon, and we should get more details on the upcoming superminis.
Speeding things up
However that doesn’t seem to be fast enough. According to a new statement, VW intends to ramp up its investment and also revamp its software strategy. The new five-year plan should eliminate lots of the delays and budget issues the company has already experienced around its electric car strategy.
What’s next?
Once complete, the ID range will stretch from one to seven, with space for niche additions like the Buzz minivan and Buzz Cargo commercial van. So far, all models of ID have been built on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform, which is also used by Audi, SEAT and Skoda. However, the Volkswagen Trinity project is already pointing to the next steps for the parent brand, and we’re expecting to see the first fruits of that in 2026 based on the new Scalable Systems Platform (SSP).
Trinity will launch with a flagship EV, and it may be built at a brand-new production facility at Wolfsburg – though the company is still debating whether or not to do so. Still, the Trinity will usher in a new generation of electric cars with a focus on longer range, increased autonomy, and a shift in the way cars are built and sold. More on that later.
Returning to the present, so-called performance variants of the ID range are also starting to appear, These are labelled GTX, denoting their supposedly sportier character, quicker acceleration and dual-motor, all-wheel-drive configuration. The first of these warmed-up EVs was the ID.4 GTX, and we’ve recently the ID.5 GTX – neither really feels close to the equivalent of a petrol-powered GTI, though.
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/electric/volkswagen/
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