The VW ID.3 Is Not About Pioneering Technology: It's About Scale

An Autocar op-ed says the ID.3 may be too late, but what about massive production numbers?

In September 2019, we published an article comparing the VW ID.3 with the Renault K-ZE to check which one would be the EV for the masses. At that point, we still did not realize something an article at Autocar reminded us of: the electric Volkswagen is neither the cheapest nor the more efficient EV on the market. It also does not lead in terms of technology. How, then, will VW make it become the electric Beetle? The answer to that is scale.

It took us the start of deliveries for the ID.3, the presentation of the ID.4, and the first documented accidents with the electric Volkswagen to realize the German company’s plan, even if the German automaker had anticipated it more than once.

Just as a reminder, Volkswagen said it intended to produce 1 million EVs by 2022. Mind you that the goal is not to achieve that many electric cars by then. VW’s target is to deliver 1 million per year in two years and a lot more in the future.

It took Tesla 17 years to get to that number, reached with a Model Y on March 10, 2020. That proves companies that already know how to build vehicles for many decades do not have only hindrances in their path towards electrification. They have aces in the hole that can be crucial. By 2028, Volkswagen expects to have produced 22 million EVs.

 

That shows the company counts on its skills about manufacturing to change the game in its favor. Elon Musk himself is praising manufacturing more and more because “building the machine that makes the machine” is a lot harder than building the machine itself.

When Volkswagen started delivering the ID.3 in Europe, it made a ceremony to handle the first one to Oliver Nicolai on September 11. Still, the cars were already in Norway, UK, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands. They were probably in all European markets, but we cannot tell that for sure.