The electric car VW e-Up is expected to be available to order again from February


Volkswagen has not accepted any new orders for the VW e-up from 2020 because the delivery times would have become too long due to the high demand. According to the manufacturer, the order books are now reopening “probably at the end of February”.

The small car, which has been on sale since 2013, only became so popular thanks to government subsidies for electric cars. The situation was then exacerbated by the lack of parts due to COVID-19. Not even price increases have helped to steer interest into manageable paths and in the end the identically constructed Seat Mii electric and the Skoda Citigo iV (test) were also removed from the range in order to be able to process the order backlog in an orderly manner.

In the meantime, it has been speculated that the group could stop producing the small electric cars with their gross 36.8 kWh and 3.6 meters in length and instead offer the VW ID.1 and ID.2 electric cars, which have already been presented as near-series studies. At 3.8 meters, the larger cars (the ID.Life study is even significantly longer at 4.2 meters) with hardly less than 57 kWh should come onto the market from 2023, including the expected identical models from the Volkswagen Parallel universes Seat and Skoda.

That would also have been logical insofar as the VW e-up is merely a conventional model that was subsequently converted to electric drive with the corresponding disadvantages of less good use of space and a comparatively short range. It can be assumed that the production of these cars is also associated with higher costs than an electric car designed from scratch, after all the e-Up has to be equipped with a floor assembly that differs from the original design and B-pillars that have been adapted accordingly.

But apparently the demand is attractive enough for Volkswagen to look for solutions. The Seat Mii electric (test) has been available to order again since the end of January. At the request of heise autos, the group confirms that it will also “reintroduce the e-Up! to the order program (probably from around mid-February). The production figures depend on several factors, such as parts availability, factory capacity and incoming orders. Here we can currently give no information.”

The suspicion that this could possibly be an expensive special edition to sell off the last remaining stocks was contradicted by the product communication with the words: “There will be no limited edition”. Of course, it would be too early for that, given the high level of demand. However, it is to be expected that the “e-Up Style Plus” will be a very well equipped car that leaves the buyer with only a few options. In terms of price, VW should be aiming for EUR 26,000 in order to then be able to offer the customer prices well below EUR 20,000 after deducting the innovation premium, which has increased to EUR 9,570.


(fpi)

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