VOLKSWAGEN ID POLO

Cupra led development of supermini EV but VW insists it's a proper Polo

- JAMES ATTWOOD

The new Volkswagen ID Polo drives like a Volkswagen. If you haven't been paying attention to all things Wolfsburg in recent years, that might seem a curious statement to make. It looks like a Volkswagen and it carries a well-known Volkswagen name, so was there any doubt that it would drive like one?

Yes, actually, there was. The first wave of Volkswagen's bespoke electric ID models had many merits but didn't necessarily look or feel much like you would expect a Volkswagen to. So this entry into the circa-£22,000 affordable EV market is essentially the start of a reset of the look and identity of the German brand's EVs.

Except the development of the ID Polo's underpinnings have - whisper it - been led by Cupra. The ID Polo is a sister car to the Cupra Raval that we drove recently (Autocar, 3/10 December), sitting on the Volkswagen Group's new MEB+ platform for small EVs and sharing the same battery and motor technology. Cupra has led chassis development for both models (as well as the Volkswagen ID Cross and Skoda Epiq), and they will be built on the same line at the Seat plant in Martorell, Spain.

However, Volkswagen insists that the ID Polo isn't a badge-engineered Raval; it set key parameters for the ID Polo chassis, so the suspension tuning, chassis refinement and styling are pure Wolfsburg.

What is the key quality that the designers and engineers claim to have proudly infused into the ID Polo? Nerdiness. The team took with aplomb the task of making a small hatch that was a true Volkswagen, because they're all longtime fans of the brand who know what such a car should be, both in styling and dynamics terms.