AUTONEWS

VW's new cheap electric car will hit the European market in 2027 for €20,000

Volkswagen is lagging behind some European rivals in offering cheap electric vehicles, priced at €20,000 or €25,000, which puts them on par with more affordable versions of traditional models equipped with combustion engines. But according to the brand's CEO, Thomas Schäfer, the largest European manufacturer is committed to recovering from this disadvantage and also competing in the electric car market for all budgets, where Renault, Citroën, Fiat, Hyundai and Dacia are already represented, which kicked off in 2021.

VW's plans are to first launch, in 2026, an electric utility vehicle with the external dimensions of a Polo, but a more generous interior, which will be considered an evolution of the ID.2all prototype, and should adopt the name ID.2 in the final version. This battery-powered model will be offered from €25,000 and, if it wants to rival the competition, it will have to announce a range close to 350 km. A year later, in 2027, it will be the turn of an even smaller and more affordable model, slightly smaller than the ID.2 and with less autonomy, but a price of only €20,000, and this is the model revealed to German officials.

At an exclusive meeting for employees in Wolfsburg, where the manufacturer's headquarters and main factory are located, the representative of the VW Group Works Council justified the decision by stating that "it is appropriate to reveal to the employees of the Wolfsburg plant the next entry-level model in VW's electric range." This while Shäfer assured that “the new model will be affordable, but profitable for the brand, with quality and manufactured in Europe for Europe”.

With the scheduled relocation of Golf production to the factory in Mexico, Wolfsburg was free to be adapted to receive new models to be built on the shorter version of the VW Group's electric platform, known as the MEB 0, in addition to the future electric Golf already on the also new SSP platform, which will share the production line with the next electric T-Roc, which will also be produced at the German group's main factory.

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