The Volkswagen concern is preparing four small electric cars, one of which will bear the Škoda logo. The advertising price of up to 25,000 euros, which the German concern is still brandishing, but it will probably only have one of them, the one with the VW logo. The head of Volkswagen, Thomas Schäfer, stated this in an interview with the industry magazine Automotive News Europe.
“No. The ID.2 hatchback is the entry model at the moment, the second VW electric car will be an SUV-style car. The Skoda will be an SUV and then there’s the Cupra Urban Rebel. They won’t cost less than 25,000 euros,” Schäfer answered when asked if indeed, all four upcoming small electric cars will be priced below the long-announced price.
Now it follows from the words of the head of VW that only the production ID.2, foreshadowed a few weeks ago by the prototype ID.2all, will cost less than 25 thousand euros (in conversion, less than 600 thousand crowns). Even so, VW aims for a margin of at least six percent for cheap electric cars. “We are not a charity, we want to make money,” adds Schäfer.
The reaction of the head of Volkswagen to the prices has its own logic. The quartet of models on the MEB Entry platform, which will be produced in Spain – Škoda cars will be produced in Pamplona -, will arrive on the market in 2025. In about two years, this would mean a significant drop in the price level. Currently, the German automaker’s basic electric car is the rather old e-up!, which starts at just under 30,000 euros on the domestic market.
In addition, batteries are still expensive, although Volkswagen is working on its own higher-energy-density batteries that will appear across its brands. However, it won’t happen right away, which is why the price can only be pushed down over time.
By the way, the public’s reaction to the upcoming small electric car, which may or may not be the successor to the Polo (everything will depend on the form of the Euro 7 standard), is so far rather lukewarm. Automobilwoche had a survey done among more than 2,500 respondents, of which only 15 percent find the ID.2 really interesting. Up to 38 percent, on the other hand, do not like it, but 47 percent of those surveyed also did not know ID.2 at all.
In the aforementioned interview for Automotive News Europe, Schäfer also talked about an even cheaper electric car with a price below 20,000 euros. In the VW menu, it will probably bear the designation ID.1. “It should come in 2026 or 2027 at the latest,” he says. At the same time, he stated that Volkswagen will be responsible for the development in cooperation with Škoda, which should be the leader of the entire project. At the same time, the automaker is also looking at the possibility of offering a cheap electric car elsewhere than in Europe.
It is Škoda that is responsible, for example, for the development of the Indian market, where a similar car could be used in the future. According to Thomas Schäfer, in any case, it is not easy to design and manufacture such a cheap electric car without certain compromises – for example, in the size of the battery, or cooperation with other partners and maximizing production. Volkswagen is reportedly currently looking at ways to lower the price on four different fronts.
The last internal combustion VW
The head of Volkswagen also offered an outlook on the near future of his brand. For example, the mentioned e-up! he only has a few months to go. “It will end in mid-2024, because of the new cyber security rules. To keep it in production, we would have to introduce a completely new electronic architecture. And that would be too expensive, so it is better to develop a completely new car,” said Thomas Schäfer.
The last new Volkswagen with an internal combustion engine will be the next-generation SUV T-Roc, which should be introduced in 2025. “Of course, other models are due for a facelift, but completely new cars with an internal combustion engine are not in the plans yet,” said the head of VW. This means, among other things, that the ninth Golf will not arrive either, even though the current eighth is due for extensive modernization next year. Let’s also add that in 2033, VW will sell only electric passenger cars in Europe.
