The next generation of the Volkswagen Golf may be a cheap electric car

Volkswagen offers an electric model ID.3, but it is preparing an even smaller version, which is speculated to be called ID.2. British magazine Autocar now, citing unnamed sources inside the automaker, it says that this smaller car will be the one to carry the torch of the legend called the Golf into the electric car era.

The machine that originally predicted the ID.Life concept, presented at the Munich Motor Show in September 2021, is undergoing a redesign. Its design was handled by Jozef Kabaň, the former chief designer of Škoda, but the not-so-warm reception of the concept earned him his replacement as head of Volkswagen design by Andreas Mindt.

Nothing is firmly decided yet, but the Golf name has been tossed around as part of the various options for the new car. And Thomas Schäfer, head of the Volkswagen brand, said last October that the Golf name has great value and that it would be unwise to change it. It was speculated that the modernized version of the ID.3 would be called that, but in the end it would not be. “The real value of the Volkswagen Golf lies in the ID.2 size car,” the British quoted their sources as saying.

Volkswagen sees the ID.3 as a car larger than the current Golf, but the electric one probably won’t shrink to the size of a field. However, we can expect a reduction in external dimensions somewhere between today’s golf (4284 mm long) and today’s polo (4067 mm long), the length should be approximately 4250 mm. However, the interior space should be comparable to cars a class higher.

The idea that the Golf will return to the position of the people’s car is also supported by Volkswagen’s goal in terms of selling price – the car should start at 22,500 euros, i.e. roughly 533,000 crowns. This is significantly less than the current golf costs in Germany today – it starts there at 29,560 euros (700,000 crowns). In the Czech Republic, you can buy golf from 633,000 crowns.

Along with the design change, after which the car should look more like a hatchback, the developers are also working on the technology. The production car was originally supposed to stand on a platform called MEB Lite, but that will not be the case. The technical basis is to be a version of the MEB Plus platform, which, unlike the current MEB, will also support front-wheel drive only, but will receive better lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and handle charging with a power of up to 200 kW. Today’s MEB ends at 170 kilowatts, and not yet for all models.

The car is supposed to be relatively light by electric car standards – 1.6 to 1.7 tons – and it should also allow the installation of a second electric motor on the rear axle. Also, its sports version could get the GTI designation instead of the current GTX. “GTX is dead. The decision to replace it with the traditional GTI has already been made and we are considering using it for the ID.2,” Autocar quoted an unnamed source in a senior position at Volkswagen as saying.

An interesting change should also be the modification of the infotainment MIB, which should get the rotary control on the fundamentally redesigned center console. This is said to be part of a recently announced “quality offensive” in which Volkswagen aims to correct a number of ergonomic faults that are blamed on the interiors of its cars.

This novelty is to appear on the third generation of the Volkswagen Tiguan, which, according to the British, is to be revealed this year. However, whether the rotary controller will take the form of a multi-function button on the central tunnel, like Mazda or BMW, or whether the car manufacturer will “just” return to the controls on the central display, is not yet clear. However, it is supposed to replace the touch sliders under the display of current Volkswagens.

The redesigned concept of a smaller electric car, the successor of the ID.Life idea, is to be presented as early as March of this year. It can be expected to offer answers to a number of questions that still remain.