PARIS: Volkswagen presented the I.D. concept, the first Volkswagen of a new fleet of electric cars as part of the group’s “TOGETHER – Strategy 2025” to place itself on even broader footing for the automobile future.
The concept car has a range of 400 to 600km and demonstrates a fully automated mode for the year 2025. Volkswagen aims to sell a million electric cars a year by then. The I.D.will be launched as a compact electric car in 2020 alongside the new Golf.
The concept car shows off a fully automated mode for the year 2025 and forms part of the new VW game plan to harness e-mobility, digitalisation and mobility services to move forward.
It is the first compact Volkswagen based on the Modular Electric Drive Kit (MEB).
It is driven by an electric motor with an output of 125 kW and has a spacious interior that offers a new experience labelled as Open Space.
I.D. retracts its multifunction steering wheel into the dashpad when in fully automated mode (“I.D. Pilot”). It is even smart enough to receive parcels using a new delivery service, if its owner isn’t at home.
Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller and group design chief Michael Mauer attended the Volkswagen Group Media Night here on Wednesday on the eve of the media preview of the 2016 Paris Motor Show to push home the message that the group and its brands are looking to becoming a globally leading provider of sustainable mobility.
As a group, it plans to develop and build more than 30 new additional electric vehicles by 2025.
“A great deal has changed at Volkswagen over the last 12 months. We want to harness this momentum. We are therefore making mobility services business field our 13th group brand. That underscores just how essential we believe this business is,” said Mueller.
Mauer took to the stage at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, an artistic landmark in the French capital, to highlight that design, innovation and emotion would be the driving force in the production of new VW cars.
“I am convinced that design will be a key factor in deciding which car brands are to survive in the future,” said Mauer.
“The mobility world of tomorrow gives us designers entirely new creative possibilities. Electric drives and autonomous driving remove many obstacles and change design more radically than has been the case in recent decades.
“Moreover, key distinctive characteristics such as the sound of an engine are no longer relevant, so design becomes all the more important as a unique selling proposition.”
Mueller.
Mauer went on to say that design creates character, distinctiveness and an emotional bond to the product and the brand. “In future, it is not fitness for purpose but beauty that decides whether a car commands a top price at auctions.”
Some 1,300 designers from 45 nations in the Volkswagen Group are working on the streetscape of the future.
Taking lessons from the Dieselgate debacle, the Volkswagen Group is also strengthening its sustainability management and has appointed an international Sustainability Council.
Mauer showing the different interior layout of a future VW electric car.
The council members will advise the Group Board of Management on the topics of sustainable mobility, environmental protection, and social responsibility as well as integrity, the future of work, and digitisation. They will be independent and not obliged to follow instructions. The inaugural meeting will take place at the end of October in Berlin.
Meanwhile, CarSifu is in Paris today to check out Volkswagen’s offerings at the auto show, and among the highlights will be the debut of the Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid, which was also previewed at the media night. We will bring you more details soon.
Bugatti Chiron at the media night.
Keyword: VW shows off I.D. electric car concept