DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Volkswagen teases second I.D. concept

The clean-air era will take a massive step forward at January's Detroit motor show when Volkswagen unveils its second stand-alone battery-electric concept car.

Due in production in 2020, the as-yet-unnamed concept car can really only be given one name when it joins its new battery-electric vehicle (BEV) sub-brand, I.D., in Detroit.

It has obvious visual links to the first Volkswagen Kombi and is meant to put a new generation of people on a sustainably mobile footing, but that’s where the similarities end.

The concept will be based around the Volkswagen Group’s MEB (Modular Electric Drive kit) architecture, which will also sit beneath production versions of the BUDD-e concept (itself the first sustainable, modern interpretation of the Kombi) and the I.D. concept car shown at the Paris motor show in September.

The bi-motor car will sit its battery in a rigid aluminium casing between the axles, and it will be all-wheel drive, with one electric motor sitting on each axle.

“The concept vehicle forges links between the legendary origins of the Volkswagen brand and its electrifying future,” Volkswagen said in a statement this morning.

“Like the I.D., this concept is also based on the MEB, and so it shows the potential and bandwidth of the MEB.”

Effectively, that means the Detroit concept will be at the upper end of the MEB’s length, width, height and wheelbase range, so expect it to have the biggest interior Volkswagen can make on MEB, which is planned as the Group’s volume electric-car platform.

With the Volkswagen Group determined to sell a million BEV cars a year by 2025, cars like this concept (the name will be revealed in Detroit) will be the driving forces.

Due to be on sale after the I.D.’s 2020 launch date and after the introduction of the next-generation Golf 8, the Detroit concept is expected to have at least 125kW of power from its two motors and should be able to stretch a single electric charge across at least 400km in real-world driving and up to 600km.

“The I.D. also stands for clarity in design language, pure form, honest character, authentic emotionality – and of course an ideal spatial concept as well as a quality in details that is typically Volkswagen,” the brand claimed.

Just as the architecture will be scalable up to large cars and down to cars that will cover the territory occupied by the Polo, so will the battery packs. Volkswagen is believed to be planning to offer a range of battery sizes, with up to 50 per cent difference in capacity, depending on customer requirements.

Its interior is said by Volkswagen to be flexible enough to carry six people in comfort, with the lack of any physical link between the front and rear axles creating more interior space than with a conventional internal combustion-powered car.

The interior is expected to be clean, almost devoid of the buttons that dominate modern interior design, and the floor will be flat from front to back. Volkswagen claimed the Paris I.D. concept delivered Passat levels of interior space with a Golf-sized exterior, and it’s fair to believe it will pull the same trick here, making the Kombi-inspired concept larger inside than conventional design allows.

The concept car will also be pre-engineered for Level 4 autonomous driving, and a push on the Volkswagen logo in the centre of the steering wheel will make it retract into the dashboard to create additional interior space.

It will have a host of radar, ultrasonic, lidar and analogue cameras scanning the road at all times, so the driver doesn’t have to.

Volkswagen already has two BEV cars in production today and a horde of plug-in hybrids. Within the Group, both Audi and Porsche plan to have BEVs on sale before 2019.