VW’s EV flagship will be called Trinity

Volkswagen CEO Ralf Brandstätter has revealed the name of the brand’s new electric flagship first announced in December last year. The Trinity EV will roll off the production line from 2026.

In the German magazine Automobilwoche, Brandstätter explained that the car would use the next generation MEB-platform (purely for electric cars). The car will be produced in VW’s main plant at the Wolfsburg headquarters at a planned rate of approximately 300 000 units per year.

“The car represents the next generation of electric mobility,” Brandstätter said. “The Trinity is set to become an innovation leader for the Volkswagen brand.” The Audi Artemis project will inspire the car. VW also wants to set new standards in the production of the Trinity in Wolfsburg. “Wolfsburg will then become the flagship for efficient production,” explains Brandstätter.

New software

Of course, there will be commonality with Audi, Porsche, and Bentley’s electric cars, also based on the Artemis project. Starting in 2024, all three luxury models will be built in Hanover and use VW’s Car Software Organisation (CSO) software.

The Trinity is expected to become the first Volkswagen (and thus a bigger volume model) to feature the CSO software two years later, in 2026. “We want to show that autonomous driving can be offered in a volume model,” Brandstätter adds, announcing Level 3 autonomous driving for the vehicle.

Brandstätter is not revealing any details on the body shape of the Trinity yet. Until now, it had the internal working title of Aeroliner, suggesting a streamlined sedan, probably in the style of an Arteon. But nothing is sure in this.

And the ID.2?

In the article of Automobilwoche, Brandstätter also mentions the much-promised small entry-level model below the size of the ID.3. The Polo-sized model, which could then be called ID.1 or ID.2, will be priced below 25 000 euros.

It could go “in the direction of 20 000 euros,” but Brandstätter did not reveal further details to Automobilwoche. He only pointed out that this smaller or more space-efficient vehicle will become available in 2025. This is significantly later than the 2023-date Herbert Diess gave near the end of last year.

The small electric car is a project that has been occupying the brand for some time. According to the current status, the model is to be developed in China by Volkswagen Anhui, the joint venture with JAC. There is certainly a growing demand for a small EV from the German car giant.

Despite being already a little bit outmoded and not very cheap, the sales figures of the small EV trio VW e-Up, Seat Mii electric, and Skoda Citigo -e iV were astonishingly high. The decision of Skoda to take their version permanently out of circulation because it sold out in the second half of last year was a surprise.

VW itself had to impose a temporary order stop for the e-Up in Germany because of high demand. In this perspective, it is quite incomprehensible that VW customers will still have to wait until 2025 before they can have an electrical VW product that fits in below the ID.3.

Herbert Diess on Twitter

Meanwhile, VW Group CEO Herbert Diess has announced himself on Twitter. Diess says he wants to influence politics by being on this social platform. “And ‘of course’ I want to steal a market share of Tesla boss Elon Musk, prominently present on Twitter.”

Diess stressed that with the VW ID.3 and the Audi e-tron, VW succeeded in doing better than Tesla on certain European markets. He looks forward to productive discussions with the Tesla CEO.

He will still have some work to catch a larger audience. At the moment of writing this, Diess has 10 500 followers; Musk has… 42,6 million. But his use of social media is not totally undisputed.