Volkswagen ID 7

Volkswagen gears up to finally go Tesla-hunting with its first all-electric saloon, the ID 7 There are echoes of the Volkswagen brand in its Ferdinand Piech-run, late-1990s-era pomp about its latest new model introduction: the Volkswagen ID 7. Longer even than the company’s combustion-engined Arteon, this is a visibly substantial new all-electric saloon that will take its maker into direct competition with upper-mid-sized executive rivals like the BMW i5 and Mercedes-Benz EQE. When Piech led the company to make the upscale Phaeton more than two decades ago, it served a rather different purpose; to make a statement, and inspire a community of designs and engineers. The ID 7 is a rather more serious effort - but the ambition bound up in it seems somehow similar.Not to mention the accomplishment it represents. With this car, Wolfsburg really is beginning to master some of the key bits of technology with which it’s been struggling since the inception of the ID sub-brand four years ago.