Volkswagen is having a torrid time. Massive job cuts and ongoing financial challenges have been well aired in the media over the last 12 months. From the midst of this battle emerged the plucky little ID.Polo, carrying rather more weight on its shoulders than any supermini reasonably should.
Okay that’s a lot of pressure to put on the chassis of a little electric car, but it’s fair to say the timing of its arrival could not be more opportune. For in this car – and its siblings carrying sister brand logos – we have a reminder of the foundations of the German brand’s success in the past.
The new VW ID.Polo is not just another electric car tagged with a legacy model name. This is no cynical repeat of the Ford Capri marketing folly. Here we have a car that looks, feels and functions like a Polo but just happens to be electrically powered.
The ID.Polo is arguably Volkswagen’s attempt to draw a line under the first-generation ID era. The headline here is not just another EV but rather a new Polo. VW would have been wiser to drop the ID tag entirely from the name.
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Competition in the car market tends to come in waves. Right now, the two most active areas are small affordable electric cars and premium mid-sized crossovers. Buyers in both markets are being spoilt for choice.
The EV supermini battle is defined by fun – often retro – design, smart functionality and the promise, at least, of entry-level prices within shooting range of €20,000. Some of the big names to arrive include the Renault 5, Fiat Grande Panda and Nissan Micra.
Now comes the Polo, a car that over the decades has grown ever larger, just as the Golf has bulked out above it.
We picked up the ID.Polo at the airport in northern Denmark, accompanied by two cases and two colleagues, both of whom tower well over 6ft 2’, for a 72km trip.
No problem with the luggage, but the big surprise was the legroom in this little car. Both passengers sat in line, neither chewing on their kneecaps or forced into the foetal position. Unlike the Renault 5, this car can cater for rear seat passengers with feet larger than size four.
While it retains the conservative exterior styling of past Polos, there’s something remarkable apparent on the inside. Volkswagen has rediscovered the button, that ingenious little device mastered by mankind some time after discovering fire. You can now turn up the temperature or turn down the volume without taking your eyes off the road. That’s cutting-edge ergonomic engineering.
VW spent years defending its touch-heavy interiors. So, a return of buttons is not just some trivial ergonomic detail. This seems like a corporate mea culpa.
There’s even an option to adopt a retro instrument cluster that mimics the old VW analogue dials and even the old calculator-style digital numerals.
About 45km of our trip was on the motorway, where you might expect an EV supermini to be approaching its limits. Yet, the ID.Polo settles in with the characteristics we’ve come to associate with the Golf. It was the same on the narrower rural roads and later, during extensive testing on tight, challenging country lanes.
The real strength of this new ID.Polo is in how mature it feels, delivering its power without any of the sudden surges you get with many EVs. Here, power is delivered in a linear way, not far removed from the best days of the nippy little three-cylinder versions of the past.
[ Forget bigger batteries: VW shows another way to boost EV rangeOpens in new window ]
Equally impressive is its ride and handling. The steering is beautifully judged. There’s enough weight around the straight-ahead to know what the front wheels are doing, but it doesn’t pile on artificial heft when you wind on lock. The weighting builds naturally through a corner.
The chassis set-up is firm enough to keep the body properly tied down through a sequence of bends, yet the damping takes the sting out of broken surfaces without allowing the Polo to become floaty.
This is a car you could take from Dublin to Cork and not find yourself passing Carlow wishing you’d opted for a bigger model.
One of the most welcome improvements is the braking feel. Earlier ID models haven’t always managed the handover between regeneration and friction braking gracefully, leaving an initially soft, slightly artificial pedal feel before the mechanical brakes bite. This Polo has a far more natural and progressive pedal feel. It sounds like a small thing; in everyday driving it’s anything but.
Across four different ID.Polos we tested, we managed to maintain economy rates of 18.4kWh/100km. On paper that equates to a range just shy of 300km from the 52kWh of usable battery power on offer from our test car. But our driving was hardly representative of everyday use. We were pushing to uncover any flaws in the chassis set-up, while about 40 per cent of our driving was on motorways where the limit was 130km/h.
A trusted colleague who previously spent his time testing the car in a mix of city and suburban driving showed me proof of achieving under 12kWh/100km, which should mean a range of close to VW’s claimed 450km. The firm also claims it can take a fast charge up to 105kW, but we’ll wait for the chance to test that fully before standing over the figure.
Our testing was in versions with the 52kWh battery pack, which carries a price of €33,788 on the road in Ireland after the various grants are applied. However, for those who can live with a range closer to 300km on a full charge, a 37kWh battery pack is also offered, carrying a price tag of €21,410 with a 116hp electric motor or €28,455 for the 135hp motor version. We didn’t get the chance to drive those, so we’ll have to wait for the Irish arrival to run the rule over them. But based on the larger battery and its 211hp motor, Volkswagen certainly has the basis of a supermini that may well outshine its rivals.
[ Renault 5 delivers retro fun and a nippy driveOpens in new window ]
Consider that entry-level version, for example. The equivalent entry-level Renault 5 currently starts at over €26,000. A cheaper Renault variant is due at the end of the year, but for now the ID.Polo has an edge not only on price but also on range, rear seat room and overall grown-up practicality.
Is it great fun to drive? Not quite on a par with the Renault 5 perhaps, but our test versions with the 211hp would qualify as warm hatches. But if it’s more enthusiastic driving you’re after, VW Group isn’t just going to hand you over to Renault.
The ID.Polo provides the grown-up baseline, while Cupra has been allowed to give the Raval more driving fun.
The same platform also underpins the Skoda Epiq, pitched as the more practical, family-friendly crossover, and more style-orientated ID.Cross. There’s even an ID.Polo GTI ready to take to the road. We got the chance to test drive all these different models and can attest to the noticeable difference in their offerings, both in terms of practicality and driving performance.
[ Cupra’s Raval steps forward with VW Group’s first front-drive, affordable EVOpens in new window ]
Like its predecessors, this ID.Polo isn’t showy, it’s not flamboyant, and it’s unlikely to turn heads. But the steering does what you want, the brakes stop where you intended, and the suspension keeps the worst excesses of the road surface outside the cabin. That might seem mundane, but in a car market where these motoring fundamentals seem to play second fiddle to touchscreens that can make farting noises, this ID.Polo perhaps shows that amid the turmoil VW has realised a world of EVs doesn’t require it to reinvent everything that made its cars good in the first place.
