Volkswagen's ICE and electric car designs to converge

Martin Sander said he is still convinced "the future is electric"

Brand's electric cars will adopt a more traditional look; transition set to start with the ID 2

The styling of future ICE and electric cars from Volkswagen are set to converge as the brand tries to make its ID range seem less separate.

Volkswagen will also continue to invest in ICE architectures and technology and has put no end date on such investments, according to its new sales and marketing boss, Martin Sander.

Speaking to Autocar at the Paris motor show, Sander said he was still convinced “the future is electric” despite slowing demand for EVs.

He said he believed that Volkswagen had “done our part right, investing many billions in new vehicles, a complete line-up of vehicles on new platforms which we're offering globally”.

To that end, "I would wish for politicians to recognise that and just clearly commit to the fact that this is going to be the future and take all the doubts away from the consumers" by way of subsidies.

However, Sander added that “the ICE market globally is still that big that we can't put an end date to ICE development today”.

“Of course, sooner or later, there will be an end date, determined by customer demand," he continued. "As long as we see customers demanding ICE vehicles, we will have an offer.

"Sooner or later, there will be an end date, but I think it's too early to say when that is going to be, especially from a global perspective.”

When asked if that would lead to more convergence in the styling of ICE cars and EVs, Sander said: “Yes.”

The first example of this is set to be the production version of the Golf-sized ID2all concept, which has styling that’s more in line with traditional VWs than the firm’s ID EVs.