This little car has a big, big task. From 2027 the production version should reinvent Volkswagen, literally from the bottom up. To you and me it’s just a car – a smart one and, at £18,000, a cheap one. To Volkswagen it’s much more: redemption. VW’s electric story so far has very much had its ups and downs, and the downs have been painful and self-inflicted.
The story arc begins when Dieselgate broke, back in 2015. VW was already planning bespoke electric cars, even if we saw no evidence until the ID concept in autumn 2016. Since the first Golf, VW – despite dark beginnings under the Nazis – always thought of itself as a force for good, a big employer making sound people’s cars, boosting the economy. The diesel scandal showed a malevolent side, and it wanted to regain the high ground. The ID cars were to be the route, and they were fast tracked.
