Author: Turbocharged Little Chubby
Volkswagen’s first pure electric sedan, the ID.AERO Concept Car, has officially debuted as part of the ID. family. In addition, Volkswagen also launched the “Volkswagen IQ. Tech Label.”
The body size of the ID.AERO Concept Car is 4,975mm in length, 1,897mm in width, and 1,528mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,966mm. Despite these dimensions placing it among the ranks of mid-size sedans, Dr. Feng Sihan, CEO of Volkswagen’s passenger car brand in China, mentioned that the ID.AERO’s goal is to capture the high-volume mid-size sedan market.
This means that it will fill the gap in the “pure electric market” beyond the fuel-powered mid-size sedans such as FAW-Volkswagen’s Magotan, CC, SAIC Volkswagen’s Passat, as well as imported models such as the Weilan and Arteon, and will also bring cross-segment space performance.
Four years of hard work, finally a sedan?
When it comes to Volkswagen’s ID. family sedan models, one must first mention the ID.VIZZION concept car unveiled at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show.
Through the ID.VIZZION, Volkswagen defined the development goals of the ID. family sedan models:
It can be easily controlled through augmented reality technology and has the self-learning ability brought by artificial intelligence. Based on this, ID. VIZZION has reached new levels of comfort, convenience, safety and sustainability.
Several months after the ID.VIZZION debuted, Volkswagen unveiled the ID. SPACE VIZZION concept car at the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show.
Although ID. SPACE VIZZION is positioned as a travel car, it employs the same design language as today’s ID.AERO.
These two models are obviously more conservative in design than the ID.VIZZION, but this also gives them a higher degree of mass-producibility. In comparison, the production version of ID.AERO has a higher degree of mass production, especially in the design of the front face and front hood.
However, the Chinese market production version of ID.AERO will not be available until the second half of 2023, which means we will have to wait another year to see the mass-produced version.
The meaning of AERO: low aerodynamic resistance
ID.AERO continues Volkswagen’s past design style, with an overall design that is still relatively stable and a strong waistline on the side of the car body. Going through Volkswagen’s models on sale in China, the design of the front bumper has a high similarity with SAIC-Volkswagen Passat.
ID.AERO’s door handles also adopt a luminous touch-hidden design, replacing traditional door handles. This design is also inherited from the ID.VIZZION and ID. SPACE VIZZION concept models.
In addition to the door handle with a luminous touch-hidden design, ID.AERO has a honeycomb-style front grille at the bottom of the front bumper and a slightly rounded overall shape, earning it a good aerodynamic resistance coefficient of 0.228Cd.
And the biggest design highlight that Volkswagen gives to ID.AERO is “low aerodynamic resistance”. Therefore, the name “AERO” is also derived from “aerodynamics”.
Here we can compare several low aerodynamic resistance pure electric sedans:
ID.AERO performed well in this area, and its positioning is even more populist compared to models with lower drag coefficients.
ID.AERO’s headlights and through-style taillights have strong recognition at night, with the official inspiration coming from “jewelry”. In my personal opinion, the design of the taillights has a certain possibility of mass production, but the design of the headlights may be difficult to retain.
Moreover, the “black strip” on the taillights is too obvious, making the ID.AERO, a sedan model, look too rough. In addition, except for the styling of the front bumper, the taillight design is also very similar to that of SAIC-Volkswagen ID.4X and ID.6X.
The first sedan under the MEB platform
ID.AERO is based on the Volkswagen MEB modular electric drive platform, and the MEB platform can be flexibly applied to different body styles and sizes. The appearance of ID.AERO also marks the expansion of the ID. family’s product lineup to the subdivision market of pure electric medium-sized sedans.
In addition, the ID.AERO based on the MEB platform will be equipped with a 77kWh battery pack and can provide a range of 620km in the WLTP cycle. If calculated, the “official” energy consumption level of ID.AERO will reach 12.4kWh/100km in the WLTP cycle, which is really exaggerated.
But if the energy consumption level of 14-15kWh/100km, which is currently performing well, is used to calculate, the actual range of ID.AERO is about 510-550km, which is more in line with the range of the current ID.6 model.
On the concept car, ID.AERO is equipped with a set of 255/35 ZR22 wheels, to be honest: it is indeed a bit big…
After all, the mid-to-large fuel sedan SAIC Volkswagen Phideon is only equipped with a set of 19-inch wheels, and large wheels will also increase the energy consumption of electric vehicles. Therefore, this set of 22-inch wheels is not expected to appear on mass-produced cars.
Adding labels to products
In addition to ID. AERO, Volkswagen also released the Volkswagen IQ. Technology label. So what is this label?
Volkswagen IQ. Technology includes 8 major technology configurations, including IQ. Drive Smart Home, IQ. Parking Butler, IQ. 360 Panorama, IQ. Smart Interconnect, IQ. Intelligent Navigation, IQ. Light Elf and IQ. Voice Elf, and IQ. Light Lingmou Matrix, covering everything from intelligent driving assistance and automatic parking to interactive experience and human-machine interaction.
This Volkswagen IQ. Technology label is more targeted at the consumer car purchase process. Volkswagen integrates many technology functions under a new label, simplifying the process of consumers selecting vehicles.
Finally
As usual, the mass-produced version of ID. AERO will still provide two models from FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen. So, as the new flagship model of the Volkswagen ID. family, can ID. AERO take a slice of the cake in the Chinese market?
Today’s “smart electric vehicles” are mainly composed of “smart”, “electric”, and “car” parts. The traditional car companies’ experience in manufacturing cars gives them a deeper understanding of “cars”. New power brands have attracted consumers from the beginning with their performance in intelligence and electrification.
Now, with more and more traditional car companies transforming towards electrification and intelligence, we can also see that the gap between them is gradually narrowing, and even surpassing each other in some fields.
So, perhaps it all comes down to price when deciding the future of ID. AERO…
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.