Volkswagen’s new electric car will be the VW ID.3 – and it’ll cost from £26k

The Volkswagen ID.3 is the first of VW’s new range of electric cars, arriving in 2020 and costing from around £26k in the UK.

We’ve had plenty of teases and promises for VW’s new ID range of electric cars, but now we know for sure the firts out of the gate is the ID.3 – a Golf-sized electric Hatch with the space of a Passat – and it will arrive in 2020 with prices starting from around £26k.

So keen are VW to re-invent themselves after the dieselgate debacle that the ID.3 is called such because it is VW’s third major milestone after the Beetle and the Golf. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

VW promises the ID.3 will come in three flavours of electric power, with an entry-level model getting a 48kWh battery and 205-mile range, the middle child a 55kWh battery and 261-mile range and the range-topping model a 62kWh battery and 342-mile range.

Customers – there are 30,000 lined up already – will start to take delivery of the ID.3 launch edition in mid-2020, a car with the mid-range battery option and lots of toys which, say VW, will cost €40k, but the base model, when it goes on sale will be under €30k (about £26k).

VW say they plan to sell 100,000 ID.3s a year from the start. It seems ambitious, and although we’re sure VW has made sure they can build them – and have a reliable battery supply – are there really 100,000 people ready to jump in to an electric Volkswagen Hatch?