Volkswagens ID. 1 to be built in Portugal

Just days after unveiling the prototype called ID. EVERY1, Volkswagen announced that the series model version will roll off the production line in Portugal starting in 2027. The plant makes the most economic sense, the carmaker says.

“The car will be built in our factory in Palmela in Portugal,” VW brand boss Thomas Schäfer told reporters at group headquarters in the northern German city of Wolfsburg on Monday.

The reason the compact electric car will not be made in Germany is simple: It is too expensive. And as the ID. 1 will sell for only “about” 20,000 euros, the carmaker has to be very cost-conscious. This is also why the ID.2all, said to hit the road in 2026 for 25,000 euros, will be manufactured in Spain and not in Germany. But there are other reasons why Portugal makes sense.

As reported towards the end of last year, there were three plants in the running to make the upcoming electric car – the VW plant in Palmela, Portugal, the factory in Poznan, Poland, and Skoda’s main plant in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Even then, Portugal was considered the favourite.

The four €25,000 electric cars from VW (compact car and SUV), Cupra (compact car) and Skoda (SUV) are built in the Spanish plants in Martorell and Pamplona. As the VW battery subsidiary PowerCo is also building a battery cell factory in Sagunt near Valencia, where the cells for the upcoming small cars will be manufactured. Der Spiegel concluded at the time that this would also speak in favour of a production site in Portugal for the ID. 1. VW is currently building the Golf-sized T-Roc compact SUV there.

Will the ID.1 get sister models after all?

At this point, there are no plans for a Cupra or a Skoda variant of the ID.1. Again, the reason is cost. It was reported that with the e-Up!, the Volkswagen Group lost around 10,000 euros per vehicle. The report also states that VW is only calculating a profit of a few hundred euros per unit for the ID.1. That seemed too much of a stretch for the Skoda management.

However, VW’s technical chief, Kai Grünitz, said that nothing is set in stone. He told the British portal Autocar: “So I think 2027 is the right point of time for the ID 1, and if the market really goes up, we can easily decide then to bring Cupra or Skoda models, but not yet.”

Cost has long been a major issue with the project. VW initially wanted to build the ID.1 together with Renault and use the latter’s EV platform. It would have lowered costs and reduced the time to market. However, the talks failed. Apparently the head of the VW works council, Daniela Cavallo, vetoed the plan, insisting the carmaker use its own plants.

Volkswagen presented its upcoming electric car in Wolfsburg last week. It uses a newly developed electric motor with 70 kW, which should enable a top speed of 130 kph. There are no details about the battery yet, but the (WLTP) range should be “at least 250 kilometres,” according to VW. You can read more about the ID. EVERY1 here.

To quickly progress with the development of the ID.1, which is due to go on sale in 2027, the small electric car will be the first VW to benefit from VW’s new partnership with the US electric car manufacturer Rivian. The new electronics architecture, which Rivian and VW are developing in a joint venture, is supposed to reduce the number of control units in the car and, therefore, the cost.

yahoo.com (Portugal), autocar.co.uk (sister models)