You’re looking at the new, most affordable and smallest of Volkswagen’s all-electric ID. range of vehicles - which may get the honorific of ID.1 when it eventually goes on sale in 2027.
The entry-level EV was teased by its parent company as it announced a new three-stage plan called ‘Accelerate, Attack and Achieve’ that will serve VW’s passenger-cars brand from now until 2030.
What do we know about this potential ID.1?
Very little at this stage, beyond the fact that VW is targeting a base price of €20,000 for the newcomer - presumably looking on enviously at what Renault has achieved with its super-cheap yet immensely desirable 5 E-Tech and wanting a bigger slice of that fiscal pie.
To be clear, this is an all-new model that’s designed to sit below the already-confirmed ID.2, which is arriving in production form soon ahead of its 2026 debut. That car, a vehicle that’s ‘as spacious as a Golf but as affordable as a Polo’, has already been shown as the ID.2all concept, but its slated price will be €25,000. This latest announcement is for an even smaller, even cheaper variant of EV than that.
Nevertheless, despite the budget aspirations of VW, this teaser image suggests that a slightly more crossover-ish appearance is on the way for the possible ID.1. The picture shows new lamp clusters in a full-width strip - incorporating an illuminated ‘VW’ nose emblem - that sits below a squared-off, chunky bonnet. There are upright daytime running light (DRL) strips in a deep front bumper area, flared-out wheel arches evident at the front of the car, and what’s akin to a double-bubble roofline that, in comparison to the width of the body, seems rather high-set compared to the overall vehicle. So, will the ID.1 be a crossover-hatchback, or a shrunken SUV? We’ll have to wait to find out.
How long will that wait be?
Volkswagen is saying that the entry-level machine will get its full reveal, as a concept car, in March. As stated, it will go on sale after the ID.2, which is arriving in showrooms next year.
But what both of these sub-€30k EVs show is that ‘low-cost, entry-level mobility in the electric era’ will form one of the cornerstones of Volkswagen’s Accelerate, Attack and Achieve scheme.
The new model that may (or may not) eventually become the ID.1 will, along with the ID.2all’s production version, be developed in the electric small car family under the umbrella of Brand Group Core within the Volkswagen Group.
All of them will be built on the modular electric drive (MEB) platform, and they should help bolster Volkswagen’s ID. range. Since they arrived in 2019, the company has sold more than 1.35 million ID. EVs worldwide, with half-a-million of that number made up of ID.3s. In 2024, Volkswagen sold 383,100 zero-emission vehicles to willing customers, but smaller, more affordable models will only help to accelerate those numbers further.
Any other business from the reveal of the new EV?
Sure. It was a works meeting at VW’s Wolfsburg HQ, where Thomas Schäfer, the CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, said: “With the conclusion of negotiations in December, we set the largest future plan in Volkswagen’s history in motion. We are pursuing an ambitious path to ensure we achieve our shared goals with full commitment. A key step in this is making e-mobility attractive for everyone - that is our brand promise.”
He added that Wolfsburg itself would be playing a key part in the company’s electric product path: “The Wolfsburg plant has a clear future ahead. By relocating Golf production to Mexico, we are creating space for modern technologies. New production processes will be introduced in Hall 54. Our goal is to build the next-generation electric Golf on the new Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) there, along with the high-volume electric T-Roc. This will establish Wolfsburg as the capital of our new all-electric compact class”.
And of the potential ID.1 incomer, Daniela Cavallo, the chairwoman of the General and Group Works Council of Volkswagen AG, said: “The new all-electric entry-level model will be a Volkswagen in the genuine sense of the term. It is therefore appropriate that our employees at the Wolfsburg plant will be the first to have a preview of the design - before the general public.”
Other details of the future of Volkswagen included strengthening the competitiveness of the existing model portfolio via means of optimised cost structures and targeted product extensions to current ranges.
There was also a commitment to VW launching nine new models, including the production version of the ID.2all and the new €20,000 EV too, by 2027.