VW ID.3 deliveries won’t start until ‘summer 2020’, will accumulate volume until then

VW is about to unveil the ID.3, its first electric car built on the new MEB platform, and start production, yet, we’ve now learned that the actual deliveries to customers won’t start for almost another year.

Last week, Volkswagen announced that the production of the ID.3, for which they are converting their entire Zwickau plant to EV production, is going to start in November.

In the press release for the announcement, we were surprised that VW mentioned that the first deliveries are happening in the “summer of 2020”.

We thought it was a mistake since that’s at least 7 months after the start of production and VW previously said that the ID.3 would be coming to market in 2019.

We reached out to VW and they confirmed that they indeed plan to only start deliveries in the summer of 2020.

When we asked what Volkswagen is doing during this long period between the start of production and the start of deliveries, a spokesperson said that they are going to ramp up production and accumulate volume:

“The transformation of a high-volume plant from 100 % internal combustion engine to 100 % electric during full operations is a unique step and a major challenge, that requires precise planning. We won’t rush things and will ramp up production step by step. Furthermore, we will launch the ID.3 almost simultaneously in 30 European countries. That is only possible with pre-produced volumes, especially since we have already more than 30,000 reservations.”

The spokesperson added that VW is still “fully committed to the goal of producing and selling about 100,000 MEB vehicles in 2020.”

The production version of the ID.3 is set to be unveiled later today.

Electrek’s Take

VW told me that they already announced that, but this is surprising to me and not what I understood as the plan to launch the ID.3 so I thought it was worth the article.

I am sure that I am not alone in finding this approach odd.

I get that they want to launch in all of Europe simultaneously, but that’s really unlike automakers and inefficient to accumulate volume and sit on it for months.

If I was a suspicious person, I’d think they are pushing deliveries in 2020 which is when they are going to need to sell more EVs in Europe to avoid fines for emissions, but it wouldn’t explain the long delay in the first half of 2020.

Either way, I hope it doesn’t mean any kind of delay in production volume, but I am still disappointed that the car is not making its way to customers sooner.

As I have stated before, I think it’s going to be an important vehicle for the acceleration of the EV adoption in Europe.