Volkswagen adds ID.5 Paddle Pop to range

Volkswagen’s genuinely exciting EV range has expanded yet again, with a sneak preview of the ID.5, a “coupe” styled SUV, which is basically a sportback version of the already unveiled VW ID.4.

The ID.5 is slightly hard to make out in the launch video that Volkswagen unveiled to the world this week, because it looks like some kind of special edition Paddle Pop, covered in colourful swirls. It also inhabits a fantasy world in the YouTube clip in which global warming has been so spectacularly solved that the planet now seems to resemble a giant glacier. It certainly looks cold enough to drive around in Paddle Pops, anyway.

Introducing the exclusive preview teaser trailer for the ID.5, Volkswagen boss Ralf Brandstätter said: “The next ID is all about the elegance of flowing coupe lines, and naturally it will also come with a GTX version.”

So that’s good news, but as much as he might say it looks like a coupe, it also looks a lot like a small SUV.

The ID.5 will have the same powertrain offerings as the ID.4, including the sporty GRX versions that brings some GTI thinking to the EV category. The ID.4 GTX – and its ID.5 GTX sibling – get a 77kWh battery pack and dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrain making 220kW and offering a range of 480km.

Volkswagen plans to release at least one new ID model every year, with some kind of EV Kombi van surely coming soon.

Brandstätter said VW would “tackle every incline” as it worked “tirelessly on the way to zero for a climate neutral future”. VW was rapidly rolling out “sustainable mobility with emotional design and intelligent performance”, he added.

The real highlight of the video, however, which you must check out, is the female German presenter who pops up after the boss is finished spruiking, to say “Wow, that was fun”, at the 21:37 mark. Never, in all of human history, has someone sounded less like they were having fun.