Brave new world, meet same old world. Electric cars once stood alone (dear early adopter, here is a vehicle unlike any other), but they certainly don’t any more. At the launch of the new Volkswagen ID 3, potential buyers could make a shortlist of several similarly priced, similarly specified battery-powered cars. As it is, we’ve chosen just the one to pitch it against.
Volkswagen says its new zero-emissions family hatchback heralds a third generation for the company, after the eras of the Beetle and Golf.
Like the Golf, the ID 3 is joining an established class. A legend of Volkswagen history, the Golf arrived with a transverse-front-mounted petrol engine, driven front wheels and MacPherson-strut/torsion-beam suspension – specifications that were considered sufficiently ‘so what?’ that the Citroën CX beat it to the 1975 European Car of the Year award. So joining a game rather than changing it is clearly no barrier to success.
Changing it can work too, mind, as Nissan has found since launching the Leaf in 2010. Built in Sunderland and now in its second generation, it has become the world’s most successful electric car to date. It also looks like it has acted as a strong benchmark for the ID 3. Hence it’s here, as the Nissan Leaf e+ 3.Zero (but I will just stick with Leaf, if that’s okay).
The specification sheets of the new Volkswagen and the familiar Nissan exhibit the kind of closeness that you would find in any other family car twin test. Power is about 200bhp apiece; the front seats, back seats, boot space and equipment levels are competitive with each other; and the price is £35,215 (ID 3) versus £36,970 (Leaf). This test isn’t an ‘EV thing’. It’s just car meets car.
And that’s all we can decide for now, by the way. It will take 20 years for us to know for sure whether the ID 3 has firmly established its own piece of Volkswagen heritage.
It looks new, though, yes? Beetle, designed by Ferdinand Porsche, Mk1 Golf, lines by Giorgetto Guigiaro, meet Klaus Zyciora’s ID 3: attractive, slightly familiar yet also strangely not so, as if somebody has made a squeaky dog toy of a Golf in 1:1 scale. I’m told that it’s quite aerodynamic.
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I d take the Leaf any day, I
I d take the Leaf any day, I ll never drive a characterless pile of sh*te from car-as-appliance manufactering, emissions cheating VW.
There is no such thing as a
There is no such thing as a "zero emissions" car !! Lower emission, zero emissions at tailpipe, yes, but no car is zero emissions Matt and someone like you should not be perpetuating this myth.
"world’s most successful
Honestly Autocar, get with the program, the car that realistically deserves that title is the Model 3. It overhauled the Leaf in cumulative sales earlier this year and legitimately outsells ICE competitors in various geographies.