- Volkswagen is realigning its model range around core values and respected badges.
- Design, quality, innovative tech, and a strong price-performance ratio are the focus.
- New generation of “true Volkswagens” includes ID. Polo, ID. Cross and ID. Every1.
Volkswagen is going back to its roots and putting a new focus on the core strengths that made us love its cars in the first place. That’s the message the automaker put out at this year’s Munich Motor Show, where it revealed some of the models that make up the new “true Volkswagen” family it hopes will help it fight rivals from China.
Related: VW Revives Polo Name For EV Era And Teases First Ever Electric GTI
Most obviously, the names of the ID. Polo and its GTI twin, plus the ID. Cross, an electric alternative to the popular T-Cross combustion crossover, tells us that VW is putting new energy into its best-known badges and bringing its ICE and electric lines closer together. An ID. Golf will arrive by 2028, and a production version of the ID. Every1 concept, which could be called ID. Up, lands in 2027.
A Broader Commitment
But VW’s commitment to its core strengths goes deeper than simply ensuring familiar badges don’t fade away in the electric age. The automaker claimed it’s now focusing on new design, high standards of quality, attractive price-performance ratio, and innovative technologies.
“Our goal for the next five years is clear,” said VW brand CEO Thomas Schäfer. “By 2030 we want to establish ourselves as the leading high-volume manufacturer for pioneering technology.”
Schäfer’s boss, VW Group CEO Oliver Blume claimed the new family of EVs with improved software and battery tech has what it takes to protect the company from Chinese EVs steadily infiltrating Europe’s car market.
“Competition, for me, is very positive,” Blume told CNBC. “It is like in sport: when you have good competitors, you have to be better. That’s what we have been prepared to do in the last years, in terms of improving ourselves. I don’t fear the competition.”
Blume thinks VW can improve on its 28 percent electrified market share, but those qualities that promise to make cars like the ID. Cross a hit won’t be restricted to EVs, the automaker says. The automaker’s Munich stand also featured the facelifted version of the big-selling T-Roc crossover, the T-Cross’s big brother, along with the Tayron SUV launched earlier this year.
