The Volkswagen Group has unveiled its forthcoming strategy to strengthen its position in the European electric vehicle market, and Spain has a key role to play. The German company has announced the launch of its family of small electric cars, the Electric Urban Car Family, consisting of four models that will be manufactured in Spain.

The Volkswagen ID. Cross is the latest addition to the new family. The group’s Navarre plant has announced that it will manufacture this vehicle from 2026 for its world premiere next summer. Presented at the recent IAA Mobility Munich Motor Show (in Germany), Volkswagen ID. Cross joins the Skoda Epiq, which will be produced at the same facilities, and the new Volkswagen Polo and Cupra Raval, which have been allocated to the Martorell plant (in Barcelona).

Joint production and development project
The Skoda Epiq was also officially unveiled at IAA Mobility. It was already known that the Landaben plant (Navarre) was going to produce a vehicle under this brand, but its name was not revealed until this month. Its allocation consolidates the joint production and development project within Volkswagen’s ‘Brand Group Core’ (BGC), an initiative that leverages synergies and economies of scale to offer electric vehicles that are particularly attractive from both a technical and an economic standpoint.

In fact, all four vehicles will reach the market with a starting price of around 25,000 euros. The BGC strategy allows all of them to share the refined MEB+ modular electric platform, which will for the first time include the group’s new unified cell in its battery, with a range of up to 450 kilometres. All of this is achieved without losing the specific characteristics of their respective brands.

First electric version of the Polo
The two models to be manufactured in Martorell, which are also due to debut in the middle of next year, were unveiled at IAA Mobility at the same time. It was already known at the time that the Catalan plant would be producing the Cupra Raval and a Volkswagen model which – known until that point as Id.2all – turned out to be the first electric version of the German brand’s Polo model.

Barcelona has been preparing to start production of the two new models for some time. In May, they announced two milestones in the electrification process: the assembly of pre-series battery systems and pre-series production of the first body parts on the new PXL press for the two models that have now been confirmed.

The Volkswagen Group’s strategy with this Electric Urban Car Family aims to achieve a market share of around 20% in Europe in the small electric car segment. The company’s forecasts point to this segment growing to four times its current size over the next eight years. If these figures are achieved, it would mean the company selling several hundred thousand vehicles each year from its plants in Navarre and Barcelona.

^{Photo: Volkswagen Navarre}