Last year, Volkswagen board member Jurgen Stackman told Autocar the reason the company started with the ID.3 electric hatchback was to leave room for expansion into larger and smaller offerings. Furthermore, the ID.3 presented the best opportunity to balance size, battery performance and exceptional price. When it came to getting sufficient return for an electric city car at a VW-like MSRP, Group CEO Herbert Diess said, "There’s a long way to go. It’s really tough to get a decent range for a car under €20,000." Car magazine has an update on the smaller offerings on the way, starting with the ID.1 electric hatch. Said to be the replacement for the e-Up! microcar, the ID.1 would be a fundamental component in the new "people's car" project seeking to make EVs as ubiquitous as the once-revolutionary Beetle. Above that will be an ID.2 electric hatch targeting European competition like the Renault Zoe EV and Peugeot e-208.

Car's news upends the Autocar report, the latter mag having written that the ID.1 would be Polo-sized. As a replacement for the e-Up!, Car's version of the ID.1 would be about 20 inches shorter and 4.3 inches narrower than a Polo. Autocar also wrote that the ID.2 would be a compact crossover about the size of the T-Roc and priced below €20,000 ($22,390 U.S.). Car's take imagines the ID.2 as a regular hatch; the Zoe, for instance, is six inches shorter, four inches narrower, and sits an inch lower than the T-Roc.

To sell the ID.1 at value pricing, Car says VW would sit on a "decontented" MEB architecture with battery capacities of 24 kWh or 36 kWh, the larger battery good for about 185 miles on the WLTP cycle. It would power a single motor on the front axle. VW might decontent the car's technology and connectivity as well, putting typically standard features on an a la carte menu to help lower the base price. There are said to be rugged crossover and van versions of the ID.1 already under consideration, variants that would increase scale.

The ID.1 isn't expected to hit the market until 2023, and an ID.2 could make it to showrooms by 2024. Before then, VW's plans are to go upmarket, with the ID.3, ID.4, and ID.5 coming first and crucial to the automaker's goal of selling 1 million EVs per year by 2023. After that, the ID.1 and ID.2 will form part of a product onslaught of 27 MEB-based models apportioned among the VW, Audi, Seat, and Skoda brands by 2025, and 75 total EVs on all Group platforms by 2029.