VW announces new all-electric car platform to be produced in the US by 2020

Volkswagen has a fairly important electrification plan in motion, but it has a focus in China and Europe for now.

At the Detroit Auto Show this week, the German automaker announced that it is bringing its new all-electric car platform to production in the US by 2020.

VW’s series of “I.D.” concept vehicles powered by the company’s new MEB platform are expected to serve as the basis of a series of new production electric cars.

There’s the I.D., which is a Golf-size vehicle expected to be their first mass-market EV in 2019, there’s the crossover all-electric I.D. CROZZ Concept, and there’s I.D. BUZZ electric microbus coming in 2022.

A slide that leaked from a VW presentation about its upcoming electric vehicles showed that they have 2 more I.D. concepts to release and the first vehicles will be released in 2019, but the priority is in China and Europe.

At the LA Auto Show last year, VW confirmed that the I.D. CROZZ will be the first of their new EVs to come to the US.

Today, VW confirmed that the vehicle will also be built in the US at their Chattanooga plant:

“The first of a new family of full battery electric vehicles will be added starting in 2020 and will be based on the newly developed modular electric drive matrix (MEB). The first MEB model to go on sale in America will be an SUV.”

The company also confirmed that a “longer-range e-Golf” is going to be produced at the factory. The German automaker also recently announced that it is doubling production of the e-Golf at its factory in Germany for European demand.

They plan to spend $3.3 billion US dollars (2.8 billion euros) over the next few years to increase their production capacity in the US and release 2 new vehicles per year – a few are expected to be electric.

Volkswagen plans to spend up to 70 billion euros (~$84 billion USD) in order to bring 300 electric vehicle models to market by 2030 across all its brands.