VW puts as many hopes on the ID as once on the Gulf

When VW development director Frank Welsch turns the corner with the prototype of the ID, the car rushes like a spaceship. The sound was composed especially for this model. It sounds a lot more futuristic than the obligatory warning sound of other electric cars.

No wonder, because this is where the first car from VW, which was developed for electric mobility from the outset, drives off. Previously, the group had the rather poorly than quite converted e-versions of Up and Golf at the start.

Now the ID has to bring the turn of the century for Volkswagen, the final step into the electric era. A battery vehicle for everyone; Affordable, practical and easy - the compact car should be something of a new Golf for the company. The is the best selling car of the brand and for decades the number one in Germany.

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Disguised with black and white adhesive film, the car gets its finishing touch in South Africa. Production will start in Zwickau at the end of next year, and by spring 2020 the ID - which is currently codenamed Neo - will be on the market.

VW is late: Kia already has the E-Niro, Hyundai the Ioniq, Opel the Ampera-E. The developers at Volkswagen can look over his shoulder and even give free the space behind the wheel - also because the group does everything for a clean image after the exhaust gas scandal.

"As much as a well-equipped Golf Diesel"

"We aim at the same customers and want to convince them with the same characteristics," says Welsch with a view to the golf clientele and thus puts off the price frame: "As much as a well-equipped golf diesel" should cost the ID. Anyone who translates this as "just under € 30,000" will not be contradicted by Welsch.

Like the Golf, the ID does not offer a spectacular, but in a positive sense everyday, ordinary driving experience. He accelerates quickly at the traffic light, drives fast on the highway, and overtaking is not a test of courage.

But unlike Tesla boss Elon Musk, Welsch is not about taking the breath away from the customers during the spurt or promising them crazy speed. This fight should be fought by group brands like Audi or Porsche. The VW development chief wants to take the fear of the empty battery and make the switch as easy as possible.

A kind of electric GTI is to follow

Even if the forward-reverse switch is now mounted next to the speedometer, as in the BMW i3, you do not have to change the wheel at the wheel. Get in, start, drive off, it works in the ID as in the Golf. And that the Stromer is regulated with regard to the range anywhere between 160 and 180 kilometers per hour, should hardly bother anyone in the ID - especially as Welsch already with an electric counterpart to the GTI toying, "because even in the electromobility, the emotions are not too short allowed to come ".

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For now, it will probably give the ID only with a motor variant with around 150 kW, but three battery packs. Even the smallest battery should reach a range of 330 kilometers (WLTP measurement method), for the largest VW offers 550 kilometers.

Cockpit of the ID sets new standards

The fact that the ID still feels different than the Golf has only indirectly to do with the drive. For one, this is due to the platform, which is only possible with the departure of the burner. With the battery in the bottom and the small electric motor on the rear axle, the wheelbase is stretched by about ten centimeters. With a similar length of 4.25 meters, the ID offers noticeably more space, especially in the back seat, than its conventional cousin - also because the center tunnel in the footwell becomes superfluous.

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On the other hand, the display and operating concept makes the difference. While the hatchback usually works under camouflage, the ID's cockpit is one, two generations ahead. If you briefly lift the camouflage mats around the steering wheel during the test drive, you will only see a small digital instrument cluster and a large touchscreen with colorful graphics.

Turning arrows in the head-up display point to the streets

There is a head-up display that not only projects graphics into the windscreen, but also adapts its displays to the real world for the first time. The graphics are farther away, and the navigation arrows do not just point to the left or right, but actually point to the road you need to take.

In addition to the window regulators, all switches are replaced by sensor fields. A new lighting concept should facilitate the communication between man and machine. For this purpose, a strip with running lights has been pulled under the windshield, which indicate the direction before turning, indicate incoming calls or give information about the battery level when charging.

However, what makes the ID so important to Welsch is not just his role as the first dedicated electric car. With the ID VW also introduces the electrical construction kit MEB, from which all future electric cars of the brand and most of the group subsidiaries are to be created. By 2022, this should be 27 cars.

Numerous other models planned with the electrical construction kit

The kit is flexible in the wheelbase and gets a battery whose shape compares Welsch with a bar of chocolate. It can be expanded cell-by-cell by cell row and brings it to capacities of more than 100 kWh. In addition, the modular system with one motor per axle allows four-wheel drive.

In the next three years alone, VW wants to build five cars with this concept. On the Neo follows in 2020, a crossover in the format of the Tiguan before it will give the E-Bulli ID Buzz and a sedan as the successor to the Phaeton. "If we want to actually make between 15 and 20 percent of our sales with electric cars by 2025, we must quickly offer a corresponding selection," says Welsch.

As great as the electrical architecture is, so much work does it developers, says series boss Frank Bekemeier. In the MEB, the engineers would have to redevelop everything: "That's why we only have a few hinges and the door handles in common with the Golf." Comparable, however, is the claim: The ID should also become a bestseller.