Volkswagen showed off its ID.GTI design over the weekend in Germany. Even though it hasn’t been said when the electric car will be available in the U.S., Pablo Di Si, CEO of VW Group of America, was excited about the possibilities. The first thing to figure out is who the person is, which is a mystery. All-wheel drive will be on the GTI, which may worry some American buyers. When we told you about the Volkswagen ID GTI concept on September 3, right after it debuted at the Munich IAA car show in Germany, the official word was that there were no plans to bring it to the United States. Pablo Di Si, the CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, told Car & Driver he is working hard to bring the electric hot hatch to the United States. Di Si told media at the IAA, “Everyone in the U.S. needs the car.” Despite being a concept car, we’re working with the German team to manufacture it. It would be a good car for the United States. If you work with engineering from the start of the project, you can make sure that the touch and feel are what the American client needs. A few things that would make it hard for this plan to work—the production ID. The MEB Entry software will support GTI, which will be in Europe. It is a change to Volkswagen’s standard MEB EV platform to make it drive on the front wheels. The ID.4 is already being built at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is based on the basic rear-wheel-drive MEB design. America needs a cheap EV Di Si says that Volkswagen plans to sell a cheaper EV in the United States below the ID.4. The production GTI is a good fit for this spot. “We are the people’s brand,” Di Si said with conviction, “so we need an entry-level electric vehicle.” “We have to have one, no matter what you call it—the ID.2 or the GTI “I favor the GTI because it puts the brand’s history into a smaller, cheaper automobile. This could be seen as the CEO’s enthusiastic approval, especially since Di Si said the entry-level ID.2, below the ID.3 in Europe, will be too small and basic for American consumers. Volkswagen sources say that the ID.GTI’s front-wheel drive may be a problem. The big question is whether or not American users will want their junior performance EVs to have all-wheel drive. Due to the small size and restricted packaging of the idea, it would take much work to deliver. But we hope that the problems with this one will be fixed. We don’t want to lose this market, which has been one of Volkswagen’s GTI cars most important for a long time.
