Volkswagen is about to find out whether consumers will back its $34-billion strategy to topple Tesla Inc. as the electric-car leader. The German auto giant is now taking 1,000-euro deposits, or about $1,120, to secure one of the first in a new range of battery-powered models. The new ID.3 hatchback — which VW hopes will be the electric-car successor to the iconic Beetle — will start at less than $33,600, roughly the same level as the diesel variant of its bestselling Golf hatchback. “We are not playing,” VW sales chief Juergen Stackmann said at an event in Berlin launching the reservation program. “This is the car to beat for the future, for all our competitors.” The ID.3 anchors more than 20 battery-powered models VW plans to roll out in coming years — with a goal to sell more than 1 million electric cars annually by 2025. The ambitious effort is set to stoke competition in a segment where automakers struggle to generate returns and is mainly driven by tighter pollution regulations. Stackmann said that its electric cars “must make money.” Advertisement While some consumers have shown interest in the vehicles, which generally cost more but have less range than combustion models, electric cars haven’t broken through on the mass market. To drum up interest, VW is offering a special edition of the ID.3 that’s limited to 30,000 vehicles and includes a year’s free charging at stations connected to the company’s WeCharge app. Reservations are open for consumers in 29 countries across Europe, with Germany, Norway and the Netherlands expected to be among the top markets, according to VW. Stackmann expects the reservation book to be filled before the company officially unveils the car in September. The limited-run variant will cost less than $45,000 and includes a battery capable of powering the car for 260 miles. The basic version has a range of 205 miles, while the top-of-the-line model can drive as far as 340 miles on a charge. In a sign of its growing marketing rivalry, Tesla sent an email to prospective German customers on Wednesday, trumpeting its Model S and Model X as having the best range of electric cars in series production. Volkswagen is slated to start mass assembly of the ID.3 late this year, with the first deliveries in mid-2020. Overall, VW is aiming to sell 100,000 ID.3 vehicles annually. Tesla raised $2.35 billion last week to pad its coffers amid struggles to generate profits sustainably. The California-based carmaker’s push into Europe and China puts it in direct competition with VW and its upscale sister brands Audi and Porsche, which are also ramping up electric-car plans. “Volkswagen is a big player, and when we go, a lot of people follow,” Stackmann said. The ID.3 event came just one day after Volkswagen AG’s Porsche sports car unit agreed to pay $599 million to end a probe into rigged diesel engines, bringing the total amount of fines in its home country to more than $2.6 billion. The penalty covers the sale of cars since 2009 that were equipped with V6 and V8 engines from VW’s sister brand Audi. Volkswagen has now ended all probes by German prosecutors against its units over the sale of cars rigged to pass emissions tests. Last year it settled with Braunschweig investigators for $1.12 billion and Audi followed by paying nearly $900 million to Munich prosecutors. Parent company VW said last week the overall impact of the diesel scandal has now reached about $34 billion.<doc-sep>Volkswagen has officially opened its order page for the all-electric ID.3 hatchback, in a livestream event in Berlin Thursday night (Australian time) that was met with varying degrees of excitement, and for some, a whisper of disappointment. The ID.3, as it is now officially known, is the the first of Volkswagen’s all-electric ID series to be built on its modular MEB platform that will underpin a whole new family of zero emissions vehicles from the auto group. First off the line, a limited run Special Edition ID.3 1st with 550km of range is being offered in the UK and Europe from a starting price of “under €40,000” (converts to under $A64,200), and can be pre-ordered with a €750 ($A1200 converted) deposit. “With the start of pan-European pre-booking for the ID.3, e-mobility at Volkswagen will become concrete for our customers. From today, everyone can take part,” said Jürgen Stackmann, Volkswagen brand’s chief of sales and marketing, said at the launch event at the DRIVE Volkswagen Group Forum in Berlin. “With the ID.3, we will be ushering in the third major chapter of strategic importance in the history of our brand, following the Beetle and the Golf. “With the ID.3, we are making the electric car fit for mass mobility. Initially, we will electrify Europe with the ID.3 and then other regions with further electric models in the ID. family which are to follow in the near future,” he said. The special edition will be available in four colours, with “high-quality, high-performance equipment”, including convenience features, including voice control and navigation systems, bi-color exterior and interiors as well as a maxi glass roof and augmented heads-up display. With a 58kWh battery pack (which the carmaker says is a “medium” size out of its final range of battery pack options), the ID.3 1st will offer 420km range based on the WLTP standard. Only 30,000 units of the special edition ID.3 1st will be made. Eventually, there will be three battery pack options, ranging from 45kWh for 330km range to 77kWh for 550km range (both on WLTP standard). While its certainly a exciting moment for VW, which has spent the last 4 years planning a redemption from the “Dieselgate” scandal in which it was caught out fudging emissions testing by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the pricing isn’t exactly what people had hoped for. With VW chief Herbert Diess promising last year that the carmaker would be selling EVs like Tesla but “cheaper by half” by 2020, it was thought that “electric for everyone” (as the carmaker’s motto goes) would mean a price tag of somewhere in around €20,000-25,000. The carmaker has now said that the 45kWh version of the ID.3, when it becomes available, will start at less than €30,000 ($A48,150 converted), which is over half the price of a 560km long-range Tesla Model 3 (WLTP), which starts at €54,800 ($A88,000 converted) but with considerably less range. In addition to the let-down in price, the carmaker has only released camouflaged photos of the ID.3 – one of which was leaked yesterday. In Australia – which still suffers from a distinct lack of choice when it comes to electric vehicles compared to overseas – the ID.3 is expected to arrive within the next few years. But while VW Australia’s brand experience manager Kurt McGuiness has previously told The Driven that Australia would be part of an ” early international introduction of models” starting from 2021, it appears that Australia’s failure to improve emissions regulations may see that date pushed back. In a media statement released on Thursday, VW Australia’s managing director, Michael Bartsch, said that Australia is “in danger of losing its place in the queue for EVs because this country’s automotive regulations have fallen behind the first-world norm”. Bridie Schmidt is lead reporter for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She specialises in writing about new technology and has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018. She has a keen interest in the role that zero emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum.<doc-sep>
Volkswagen opened up pre-orders in Europe at a launch event Wednesday for a special edition of the first model in its new all-electric ID brand. Within 24 hours, the company received more than 10,000 registrations, a result that suggests growing demand for electric vehicles. VW revealed Wednesday the name, some pricing and range specs for the first model in its multi-billion-dollar effort to produce and sell a portfolio of electric vehicles. This first model, known as the ID.3, is an electric hatchback that will be offered in three battery options, with ranges between 330 and up to 550 kilometers (205 miles to 341 miles) in accordance with WLTP. The WLTP, or Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, is the European standard to measure energy consumption and emissions. Customer interest in the special edition “ID.3 1” — which will be limited to 30,000 vehicles — is “significantly exceeding the brand’s expectations, VW said Thursday, adding that the company’s website has struggled to handle the large number of users accessing the system to pre-order the vehicle. “This leads to long waiting times and interruptions in the registration process in some markets. Volkswagen is working hard to eliminate the hitches,” Volkswagen said in a statement. “Nevertheless, more than 10,000 registrations were received throughout Europe during the first 24 hours.” Production of the ID.3 1 is expected to start at the end of 2019; the first vehicles are to be delivered in mid-2020, VW said. Initial interest in the ID.3 — as measured by the pre-order figures shared by VW — is reminiscent, albeit on a smaller scale, to those heady days in 2016 when Tesla opened up reservations for its Model 3 sedan. A week after Tesla opened up pre-ordering, the company boasted more than 325,000 customers had made $1,000 deposits for the Model 3. That vehicle wouldn’t come to market until July 2017. VW customers pay a deposit of €1,000 ($1,122) to pre-order the special edition vehicle. The special edition version of the ID.3 will include free electric charging for the first year, up to a maximum of 2,000 kWh, at all public charging points connected to the Volkswagen charging app WeCharge and using the pan-European rapid charging network IONITY. The pre-booking special edition, which will cost less than €40,000 ($44,898), before incentives, has an estimated range of 420 km under WLTP (about 260 miles). A base model of the ID.3 will have a smaller battery and will start at less than €30,000 in Germany, according to VW. Volkswagen has been showing off its ID line of concept electric vehicles for several years. Now, the company is finally starting to prepare some of them for production, beginning with the ID.3. VW aims to sell 100,000 ID.3 vehicles annually. The ID.3 hatchback is the first model to be built on the automaker’s new Modular Electric Drive Toolkit, or MEB, electric-car architecture. Introduced in 2016, MEB is a flexible modular system — really a matrix of common parts — for producing electric vehicles that VW says makes it more efficient and cost-effective. Others will soon follow. VW plans to have a portfolio of more than 20 full-electric models. The automaker’s goal is to sell 1 million electric vehicles annually by 2025.