Three years ago Volkswagen launched the ID.3, a car that was meant to be the third big ‘event’ car in VW history, after the Beetle (née Type One) in 1938 and the Golf in 1974.
It was greeted by a chorus of indifference, as this intended landmark machine turned out to be just another competent but bland EV in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and with a really annoying infotainment system as standard.
Volkswagen ID
But maybe that car has now arrived, or is at least on the way. Only a concept for now, but confirmed for production, the Volkswagen ID.2all looks like the car the ID.3 should have been all along: small, cute and with prices starting below £22,000 (ID.3 prices start, repeat start, just below £40,000) this looks far more like the genuine people’s car we’d hoped for. What’s more, new boss Thomas Schäfer says it will be followed by another yet smaller model aimed to reach the market at less than £17,500.
Now of course there is many a slip and all that, and we know the tricks manufacturers pull to gain headlines – ranges starting with priced-to-excite stripped out specials that prove remarkably hard to order and so on – but even so this appears to be Volkswagen recognising it needs to return to its roots and to the kind of cars upon which the brand was built in the first place.
How he intends to do all that while still including all the safety features, equipment and range requirements the market now demands and still make a profit is, bluntly, anyone’s guess. With Schäfer’s arrival, replacing the prickly and now fired Herbert Diess, there does seem to be a breath of fresh air blowing through Wolfsburg, and if the ID.2 really does deliver the goods and affordably so, after the false dawn of the ID.3, no one will welcome it more than us.
