Electromobility: Why we are focusing on E

September 9, 2019 was truly a historic Monday for Volkswagen: on the eve of the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, the brand presented not only a new car but also the symbol of a new era. The ID.3 is the first model, no less, of a completely new generation of pure electric vehicles – balance sheet CO₂-neutral, highly efficient, and fully connected.

The demand, even before the official launch, is already enormous

Like any future ID. models, the ID.3 is based on the new modular electric drive matrix (MEB), which was specially designed for pure electric drive and makes the best possible use of the opportunities offered by e-mobility. The ID.3 has significantly longer ranges, plenty of interior space and outstanding performance. The scalable battery system offers ranges from 330 to 550 kilometers with short charging times – and at an entry-level price of less than 30,000 euros. The market launch is planned throughout Europe for summer 2020. In addition to the flagship ID.3, the ID. model family of tomorrow also includes the SUV space miracle ID. CROZZ, the ID. BUZZ designed as the Bulli of tomorrow, the avant-garde ID. VIZZION the multi-variable all-round ID. ROOMZZ, the beach cruiser ID. BUGGY and the ID. SPACE VIZZION giving a future perspective of the station wagon. The advanced demand for the ID.3 is already enormous. In mid-May 2019, Volkswagen launched the pre-booking of the ID.3 1st Edition – an exclusive special edition limited to 30,000 vehicles with extensive equipment, for which more than 36,000 reservations had already been received by the beginning of December.

This marks the beginning of the third major chapter of strategic importance in the history of the Volkswagen brand after the Beetle and Golf. “ID.3 will make an important contribution to the breakthrough of e-mobility. It makes clean, individual mobility accessible to millions of people,” said Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Group, during the start of production of the ID.3 at the Zwickau plant. Volkswagen is more committed than any other automaker to electrically powered vehicles. The electric car for everyone – that is the core of the e-offensive. By 2029, Volkswagen intends to market up to 75 pure e-models across the Group, plus around 60 hybrid vehicles. In total, the Group intends to sell around 26 million electric vehicles by then and thus helping e-mobility achieve a worldwide breakthrough. Volkswagen will invest around 33 billion euros in electric mobility across the Group by 2023. The joint ventures in China will invest a further 15 billion euros in this over the coming years.

The ID.3 also sets new standards when it comes to sustainability: it is the world’s first vehicle to be produced in a CO₂-neutral way and thus handed over to customers without a so-called “CO₂ backpack”. The ID.3’s energy-intensive battery cell production, for example, is sourced from 100 percent green electricity. Currently unavoidable emissions in the entire ID.3 production process are offset, among other things, by supporting the climate protection project “Katingan Mataya Forest Protection” on the Indonesian island of Borneo.

The Zwickau plant is playing a pioneering role in the transformation of Volkswagen’s global production network. With investments of 1.2 billion euros, Volkswagen is completely converting the site to electromobility – and at the same time making Zwickau the largest and most efficient electric car plant in Europe. Around 100,000 electric models are to be produced in Zwickau as early as next year. From 2021, up to 330,000 electric cars per year will then be produced there. The locations in Emden, Hanover and Dresden will also produce electric vehicles in the future. Together with Zwickau, they will form the largest production network for electric cars in Europe. Mlada Boleslav is also planned as a European electrical engineering location. In China, two further MEB plants are being built in Anting/Shanghai and Foshan, which will start production in 2020. Dresden and Mlada Boleslav are also planned as European electro-locations. Volkswagen Group is also investing 690 million euros in the Chattanooga plant in the USA to expand its production capacity there. Volkswagen will thus have a total of eight plants for the production of MEB vehicles by 2022.

36,000 charging points in Europe

In order to achieve the ambitious goal of making electric mobility suitable for the masses, Volkswagen is also driving the charging infrastructure forward: at home, at work, in public spaces and on the motorways. The Group and its partners are building a total of 36,000 charging points throughout Europe by 2025. 11,000 of these will be built by the Volkswagen brand alone. They are mainly located at Volkswagen’s German locations, such as Emden, Kassel and Zwickau and at the approximately 3,000 Volkswagen dealers. Volkswagen Group is investing a three-digit million sum in the charging stations at its locations alone. At the same time, the Group is creating suitable infrastructure solutions – for example, by developing a mobile fast-charging station or as an electricity provider through which customers can purchase CO₂-neutral Volkswagen electricity.

But it is also clear that all this is not enough to get electric mobility out of its niche. Because with the expected breakthrough of e-mobility and the growth of electric cars on the roads, the charging infrastructure must be expanded even further. In Germany alone, around one million public charging points are to be set up by 2030. Volkswagen is therefore placing a further focus on charging at home, with its Wallbox. This is because around half of the charging processes will be carried out at home. With the ID.Charger, Volkswagen is launching the corresponding Wallbox on the market at the same time as the ID.3. With a charging capacity of 11kW, the ID.3 can be fully charged in around six hours.

One of the reasons why Volkswagen is so consistently focusing on electromobility is because this drive technology is the best way to reduce CO₂ quickly and efficiently. According to experts, although hydrogen-powered fuel cells have many advantages (range, fast refueling, no heavy battery on board), but have a decisive disadvantage: they are comparatively inefficient – both in terms of efficiency and cost. And: Hydrogen is currently not ready for the volume market, there is a lack of a corresponding infrastructure for its use, among other things. In all likelihood, it will only be used for trucks and buses and over long distances in the foreseeable future. Volkswagen, on the other hand, intends to sell more than one million electric vehicles a year in the near future. The forecast by Berlin hydrogen expert Prof. Volker Quaschning underlines Volkswagen’s consistent e-strategy: “The normal car for average purposes will very probably be a battery-powered car in the future. There are no environmental disadvantages as a result.”