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The first real electric car from VW, the ID.3, is still struggling with software problems, but is due to be delivered to customers from September.
Photo: Christine Roch / Volkswagen AG
The first impression:
The shape is sanded smooth, the rear window blackened and without a frame - the VW ID.3 looks new and different, its special position is immediately recognizable.
And yet it doesn't look as futuristic as the 2013 BMW i3.
In view of the more conservative VW customers, that's definitely no harm.
What the manufacturer says:
Ralf Brandstätter, new VW brand boss and successor to Herbert Diess in this role, speaks of the "big plan" that is finally taking shape.
"Now it's getting serious."
In fact, the ID.3 is Volkswagen's first electric car that was designed entirely as such.
The compact car should lead the group into a future without an internal combustion engine.
"Just like the Beetle and the Golf once did, it will shape the company and an entire era," predicts Brandstätter.
To make this happen, Volkswagen has developed a modular electric car kit, the MEB, for the ID.3 and three dozen other battery models.
Volkswagen is investing at least 30 billion euros in this for the core brand as well as Audi, Seat and Skoda.
By the end of the decade, 20 million electric cars should be produced with the kit.
The Lower Saxony are in a hurry.
This year, for the first time in Europe, the CO2 limit of 95 grams per kilometer is the average for the vehicles sold by a manufacturer.
Electric cars are counted with zero grams, so every day of sale of the ID.3 counts for Volkswagen.
In order for it to be enough in the end, Brandstätter barely started sales despite problems with the software.
First of all, registered interested parties will convert their reservation into a purchase contract from Wednesday (June 17), four weeks later new interested parties will be given a chance.
From the beginning of September the cars will be delivered, thousands of which VW has already produced in the Zwickau plant.
A handful of functions are not available at the start, they will be activated later, admits Silke Bagschik, who is responsible for sales of e-cars at VW.
This includes the far range of the head-up display and the smartphone integration with Apple Car Play and Android Auto.
In a conversation with developers, we learn that the automatic parking system is also missing at the beginning and - particularly painful - the module that uploads the updates via a cellular connection.
At least one more time, the "first movers", as VW flatteringly calls their first-time customers, have to drive to the workshop with their ID.3 in the same way.
In return for the hardship, VW waives the first three leasing installments.
Obviously, VW is taking revenge for the first time in the ID.3, bundling all vehicle functions in two central computers and no longer installing dozens of control units as in the Golf.
This transition is not going as smoothly as hoped.
The model is Tesla, the Californians get by with just one computer.
Tesla drivers are used to taking over a car that is not fully functional.
"Even one year after its market launch, there is still no Model 3 that can read traffic signs and interpret them correctly," says scene expert Stefan Moeller from the e-car rental company Nextmove.
However, updates are available from Tesla without a visit to the workshop.
We noticed that:
New and yet familiar - this also applies to the driving experience in the ID.3.
On the one hand, it offers the quiet typical of electric cars.
It comes up to speed in a way that is hardly known even from the Golf GTI.
For this, VW limits the speed to 160 km / h, with regard to the range.
At the same time, the car does not turn its drive to the outside, so that even electric car novices should quickly feel that they are in good hands.
Neither the greater weight is uncomfortable nor the increased sitting position due to the batteries in the floor.
In contrast to e-cars like the Nissan Leaf or the DS3, the driving experience is not synthetic: In the ID3, the driver feels exactly what is happening between the wheel and the road and has a direct steering feel.
In order to make it easier for drivers to switch to battery-powered cars, however, the engineers have barely made use of a nice feature of e-cars: driving only with the power pedal.
Other models decelerate to a standstill if you just lift your foot.
Then the electric motor becomes a generator and recovers electricity.
On the other hand, the ID.3 rolls out in standard mode as if it were idle.
Even those who switch from "D" to "B" (ie in "braking" mode) can only come to a stop in time with a lot of vision without having to hit the brakes.
3, on the other hand, fully exploits one of the electrical advantages.
Because there is no engine in the way at the front, the wheels turn more strongly than in the VW Golf - the car comes around the corner more easily.
In contrast, even a VW Polo feels almost bulky when maneuvering.
Probably the biggest difference to the classic models is in the interior.
The electrical technology is housed in the car floor in such a space-saving manner and the axles are moved outwards so far that passengers have significantly more legroom.
Backbenchers sit even better than in the VW Passat.
In addition, VW frees the cockpit from switches even more thoroughly than in the current Golf.
Instruments shrink to a small display that stands freely behind the steering wheel.
The gear selector lever protrudes from this side, as on the BMW i3.
The light strip under the windshield is brand new.
The car communicates with people through them.
During voice input, it flickers white, blue light points help with navigation, red stands for warning messages, green for incoming calls.
more on the subject
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Corona aid: How you can best use the economic stimulus package for yourself A column by Hermann-Josef Tenhagen
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You have to know that:
The vehicles delivered first ("First Edition") cost almost 40,000 euros.
Thanks to the recently increased state purchase premium, the customer pays around 31,000 euros in the end - and electricity is free for one year.
The engine - which is mounted in the rear of a VW for the first time since the Beetle - has an output of 150 kW.
The battery of the first series stores 58 kWh, which is officially enough for 420 kilometers.
A version with 77 kWh for up to 550 kilometers and a 45 kWh model designed for 330 kilometers, with which the base price should fall below 30,000 euros, will follow later.
After deducting the subsidy, the ID.3 ends up around the base price of the Golf, which VW sells from 19,995 euros.
With the de facto competitive price for the ID.3, VW also starts the hunt for Tesla.
For the Wolfsburg-based company, the first thing to do is to finally get the same high number of electric cars as the Americans.
They should succeed - at the latest with the next models from the electrical kit.
In a direct model comparison, model 3 is clearly ahead.
But it is also more expensive, larger and more powerful and simply drives in a different segment.
VW is only looking for a direct comparison with Tesla shortly before the end of the year.
Then the group contrasts the Model Y with the ID.4 - the first SUV from the MEB.
On the road, the ID.3 tends to compete with electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and the Renault Zoe, as well as slightly smaller electric cars like the Opel Corsa e and its group siblings DS3 E-Tense.
The Peugeot e-208, the Honda E and the electric Mini also roughly fall into the league of VW's hopefuls.
We will not forget that:
solid, user-friendly and, thanks to government aid, reasonably priced - the ID.3 is a typical VW in many ways.
What does not want to fit the VW brand are "look" and "feel" - especially with such an important model.
At a manufacturer who celebrated in the compact class for silicone-damped grab handles and gas pressure dampers for the bonnet, the plastics in the ID.3 seem almost shamefully cheap - especially in the lower half of the dashboard and in the rear.
The hard, simply colored surfaces are far removed from the piano lacquer ambience that golf customers have been ensnared with.
That's not better at Tesla, but it shows the difficult situation VW is in: keep it up with all-round comfort?
Then the ID.3 will be too expensive like every VW.
Or consistently dare to try something new so that the car creates mass like the Beetle or Golf.
VW managers are going this way.
If you are bothered by it, you may have thought, you can buy an Audi.
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