VW Is Working On A £17,000 EV

Although it’s recently shifted some of its investment towards more plug-in hybrids, Volkswagen remains fully committed to electric cars. There have been rumours floating around for a while that it’s been working on a compact car designed to bring down the entry cost to EVs in Europe, and it’s today confirmed that, with the car set to arrive in 2027 and targeting a starting price of around €20,000 – roughly £17,000 at current exchange rates.

For comparison, the cheapest electric car in the UK (excluding the not-a-car Citroen Ami) is the Dacia Spring, which goes on sale next month for a fiver under £15k. That only buys you the basic 44bhp version, though, which is likely to find itself very out of its depth once out of an urban area. After that, it’s the £21,990 Citroen e-C3.

VW’s also aiming to plug this gap, though, with a compact EV built in Spain and announced alongside a renewed commitment to European production, all intended to keep down cost and supply chain emissions.

Echoing comments made a few months ago by Renault Boss Luca de Meo, VW CEO Thomas Schäfer also called for greater government support for European carmakers: “One thing is clear: electromobility from Europe for Europe can only succeed with political support and competitive framework conditions.”

While the VW-badged hatchback is targeting that magic €20k entry point, it’ll be part of an ‘Electric Urban Car Family’ across the VW group’s core brands. This will include baby crossovers from VW and Skoda, and a small hatchback from Cupra, all planned to go on sale at under €25k (around £21,250). We may have already seen some of these cars previewed in the shape of the Skoda Epiq and Cupra Raval concepts.

That does, of course, raise further questions about the future of the SEAT brand, which is still unclear at this point – the fact that VW plans to sell one of its budget-friendly EVs under the supposedly more premium Cupra brand doesn’t bode too well for it, though.

That’s about all we know about this car and its siblings so far, but VW has also shared a teaser image showing something with a high roofline and a rear end that drops away steeply, not unlike the recently-discontinued Up city car, which the new EV should supplant size-wise.