- volkswagen claims it's entering a brand-new era with a new identity, and its standard bearer is this id.3 electric hatchback.
- the new car, first in a planned lineup of id-badged models, made its debut in a preview for the frankfurt auto show.
- it's also the first to wear vw's new more two-dimensional logo.
volkswagen has been talking about entering a new era for some time now, and the company is now finally unveiling the first member of its electric-car family in production form.
the id.3 you see here is an electric hatchback that won't be coming to the u.s. market, but it nonetheless has big implications for vw's plan to build out an entire family of evs that it will start selling here within the next few years. the first of these to arrive in the u.s. will be a mechanically similar but larger electric crossover based on the i.d. crozz concept, and the long-anticipated revival of the microbus will follow after that.
we thought it was pretty weird when volkswagen touted the expressive "eyes" of the first id concept. now the bizarre, humanoid winking function is found on the production car. the led headlights flutter in an impersonation of a wink or a blink when the driver approaches the parked id.3.
vw says the chunky c-pillar is meant to be evocative of the golf. otherwise, the id.3’s proportions are noticeably taller and more upright, with short front and rear overhangs and large wheels. it is about the same size of the golf but is said to offer considerably more interior room due to the packaging advantages of the meb electric platform. a simplistic interior features a large digital gauge cluster and central touchscreen, with few physical controls. there’s a lot of storage space in the center console.
multiple battery options will be offered, with a 45.0-kwh option having 205 miles of range and a 77.0-kwh battery providing 342 miles. keep in mind that these range numbers are on the european wltp cycle, which is conducted differently than the epa range. these battery sizes will likely translate to the first u.s.-bound id crossover that will arrive in 2020. in the meantime, the id.3 starts at under $33,000 in europe and orders are open now.
