VW cuts prices, revises trim levels on ID electric-car lineup

The Volkswagen brand has cut prices and revamped its trim offerings on its ID line of full-electric vehicles to boost sales in France, Belgium, Italy and several northern European countries.

VW's local subsidiaries and importers announced the changes at the end of December and this week.

VW said the revisions to its ID lineup "will enable us to achieve our ambitious business goals." "With our clear pricing strategy, we continue to focus primarily on the quality and attractiveness of our products," a VW spokesperson told Automotive News Europe on Friday.

Additional market-specific offers are geared to the country-specific requirements and needs of customers, VW said. ”Individual markets determine what pricing or promotions to offer, the spokesperson said.

The price cuts come despite VW Group CEO Oliver Blume saying last year that the automaker would not get into a price war in Europe with Tesla, the region's top-selling BEV brand, after Tesla cut prices sharply on the Model 3 and Model Y. "We have a clear pricing strategy and are focusing on reliability. We trust in the strength of our products and brands," Blume told Frankfurt Allgemeine Sonnetagszeitung in January 2023.

Many experts are forecasting that demand for EVs will slow, as consumers balk at high prices and a still-developing charging network, and automakers struggle to match the profitability of internal-combustion cars.

VW Group executives said in October that EV orders had slowed significantly in 2023, although the automaker said at the time that it would stick to its EV pricing despite cuts by rivals.

VW in November cut shifts at its huge EV factory in Zwickau, Germany, in the face of reduced demand for EVs. The factory, which has an annual capacity of 360,000 units, builds the ID3, ID4, ID5, Audi Q4-E-tron and Cupra Born EVs.

French EV incentives targeted

In France, the new prices and trim lines mean that nearly all versions of the ID3 compact hatchback and the ID4 and ID5 midsize SUVs will be eligible for a government EV bonus of 5,000 to 7,000 euros in 2024, VW said in a news release. The VW models will have two new trim lines, ID and Life Max.

The VW ID3 Pro with a 58 kilowatt-hour battery, for example, is available in ID trim level for 39,990 euros; with a 77 kWh battery, it is 44,310 euros. The previous lowest-price version was the Pro Performance, at 42,990 euros.

The ID4 in ID trim starts at 43,990 euros. When the ID4 was launched in France last year, it started at more than 51,000 euros, although VW offered a rebate to buyers last autumn that cut the price to about 44,000 euros. 

The lowest-price ID5 (ID trim) starts at 50,500, VW said, while the Life Max trim starts at 51,500, which VW says is 8,150 euros less than the roughly equivalent 2023 Pro Performance trim but with more options --- for a net benefit to buyers of 11,260 euros.

“The complete overhaul of the ID range demonstrates Volkswagen's ambition to offer very competitive models on the electric market in France,” Dorothee Bonassies, VW brand director in France, said in the release this week.

VW has trailed other automakers in EV sales in France, the second-largest electric vehicle market by volume in Europe. In 2023, VW sold 4,791 ID3s, making it the 84th most popular model overall and 13th-best-selling EV, according to figures from the PFA industry group. The ID4 ranked 98th overall and 16th among EVs, with 3,911 sales.

France’s best-selling EVs last year were the Tesla Model Y, with 37,124 sales; the Dacia Spring, with 29,761 sales; the Tesla Model 3, with 24,539 sales; the Fiat New 500, with 24,120 sales; the Peugeot e-208, with 22,700 sales; and the MG4, with 20,072 sales.

Seeking growth in Norway

In Norway, which has Europe’s highest EV penetration at 82 percent of new-car sales, VW needs to be more competitive, said Ulf Tore Hekneby, the CEO of importer Harald A. Moller. Volkswagen has fallen to third place in overall sales in Norway, he said, after years at the top. 

“We realize that although we have great and attractive models, we have not had equipment variants and prices that have been popular enough to climb all the way to the top, as we have succeeded in doing in the past,” Hekneby said in a news release. 

The ID3 will start as low as 358,000 Norwegian krona (31,700 euros) compared with more than 500,000 krona in the past, with the ID4 starting at 413,000 krona.

Italian buyers have also seen changes to the ID lineup, starting Jan. 3. The new Pro Edition Plus versions of ID.3, ID.4 and ID.5 are offered at 1,000 euros more than the Pro versions, but with 9,800 euros of added standard equipment, equivalent to an 8,800-euro advantage for customers, VW said.

On the new ID.7, the Pro Edition Plus becomes the entry version, costing 1,300 less than the Pro, but with 6,350 euros worth of additional standard equipment, translating 7,650 euros in customer benefit, the company said.

In Germany, VW's biggest European market, the automaker is funding EV subsidies after the government abruptly pulled its support for the incentives. The ID3 starts at 39,995 euros there, a lower price that was introduced early last year along with a face-lift for the model. According to reports, reductions total up to 7,735 euros on some ID models.

New pricing in Belgium and Sweden

Other countries where VW recently announced a reworked EV lineup and lower prices include Belgium and Sweden.

The ID3 is now available for 39,990 euros and the ID4 for 39,649 euros in Belgium to take advantage of an EV bonus of 5,000 euros in the Flanders region, VW Belgium said, saying that prices had been “seriously revised downward” to reach the bonus threshold.

Gert van Leeuw, director of VW Belgium, said that there would be an additional discount early this year on the ID3 to match the ones traditionally given at the Brussels auto show, so an ID3 will be available for 37,990 euros, or 32,990 euros with the Flemish EV bonus. 

In Sweden, VW has added two new trims to ID models, an “EU” base version and “Edition,” which adds features at a lower price to other trim levels. An ID3 Pro Performance Edition model, for example, is 460,000 krona (41,115 euros), compared with the Pro Performance model, which is 479,000 krona. An “EU” version of the ID3 has also joined the lineup, at 448,000 krona. Similar pricing applies to ID4, ID5 and ID7 models.