VW’s $50 Billion Moonshot Bet on an Electric Hatchback

At major global car exhibitions, Volkswagen AG typically presents itself as a big, happy family, where each brand—budget-oriented Seat and Skoda, VW proper, luxury Audi, road rockets Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bugatti—gets equal time to flaunt its latest innovations. But in Frankfurt this September, the choreography was different, with the company devoting the entire preshow press conference to a single diminutive model: an all-electric hatchback called the ID.3.

As reporters and industry grandees gathered in a cavernous exhibition hall, videos depicted lush mountain landscapes to a soundtrack of chirping birds and New Age music. To highlight the breadth of VW’s ambitions for the ID.3, a parade of prototype electric vehicles from years past made cameos. Finally, the lights went dark, the music picked up, and a trio of ID.3s drove onstage—the only auto the company showed that evening. “This is an electric car for the people that will move electric mobility from niche to mainstream,” Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess told the crowd.