New addition to the ID family set for production in 2020.
No lineup is complete without a coupé and an SUV. Knowing that, Volkswagen decided to put the two together (as is the trend now) and have brought about the third member of its new I.D. family of electric vehicles. Dubbed the ‘I.D. CROZZ,’ the new ‘crossover utility vehicle’ offers the desirability of a sports car and the utility of a… utility.
One of the headliners at this years’ 2017 Shanghai Auto Show, the all-wheel driven I.D. Crozz joins the I.D. hatchback & I.D. Buzz microbus from last year, and is undefined by the same modular platform. With a target of 1-million Volkswagen electric vehicles on the road by 2025, it’s no surprise that the ID family of vehicles are expected to go into production by 2020.
Speaking to Autocar, VW chairman Herbert Diess said that “if it was ever possible to make a 100% certain prediction of what the future will look like, it is achieved here. We are showing with the I.D. Crozz how Volkswagen will be transforming the roadscape from 2020.” And like all cars of the future, the Crozz features all the self-driving capabilities one would expect, activated by touching the VW badge in the middle of the steering boss for three seconds (but more on that later).
The exterior of the Crozz was conceived intending to be seen as a sporty all-rounder, offering little compromise in terms of dynamics or practicality. As such, the all-wheel driven Crozz delivers 225kW from its pair of electric motors, with an impressive 500km range on a single charge and an even more impressive 180km/h top speed. The “high-performance” battery, VW claims, can be recharged to 80% of its capacity in just half an hour at a fast-charger (150kW DC supply). The Crozz features ‘I.D. Pilot’ autopilot capabilities (which we mentioned briefly earlier), which sees the world around it by deploying no less than four laser scanners from each corner of the Crozz’s roof.
Volkswagen is proud to tell the world that the Crozz’s design “expresses its electric mobility DNA in every component.” As such, it’s impossible to mistake the Crozz as anything other than an EV, aided further by its ‘eyes’ that “communicate with other road users.” Aside from possibly chatty cars, the Crozz also features coloured lights around the exterior to denote what mode it’s in: In manual-driving, these LEDs housed in the front and in the roof illuminate in a light blue, while autonomous-driving will see these same lights in a shade of violet.
Inside, the Crozz sees four individual seats, accessed by a pair of front-hinged doors at the… front, with cantilevered rear doors for better access. Space-wise, the Crozz is said to feature the same amount of cabin room as the newly-minted Tiguan Allspace 7-seater SUV. That space is achieved by intelligent packaging, such as flat floor-mounted batteries, wheels shoved into the furthest corners of the car (along with the related suspension and propulsion mechanics), as well as a flexible seating arrangement. Volkswagen claims “premium class dimensions” for the rear half of the cabin, as well as enough space to “take your bike away with you for the weekend without having to mount a cycle rack.”
As mentioned earlier, the Crozz is expected to go into production alongside the I.D. hatch (and maybe the I.D. Buzz) by 2020, in line with Wolfsburg’s goal to put 1-million VW-badged EVs on the road by 2025. The VW chairman is confident that the Crozz “will play a key role” in achieving those targets, and if the production vehicle doesn’t change too much from this concept, we’re certain he’ll be right.
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