2025 Volkswagen ID. ERA Concept
2025 Volkswagen ID. ERA Concept
By Team Dailyrevs April 23, 2025
The 2025 Volkswagen ID. ERA Concept showed up in Shanghai looking like it means business. Not flashy business, but the practical, slightly conservative kind you’d expect from a company that still remembers how people actually use cars.
It's a three-row SUV. Big proportions. Square jaw. No-nonsense lines. Honestly, the design feels like someone took the Atlas, smoothed it out, and gave it a kind of blunt, digital facelift. Split LED headlights, thick D-pillars, a roofline that doesn’t pretend to be sporty — it’s refreshingly honest.
But the headline here isn’t just the looks — it’s the powertrain. This thing isn’t fully electric in the way people have come to expect. Instead, it uses a battery good for around 200–300 kilometers, backed up by a gasoline engine that doesn’t drive the wheels but works as a generator. That extends the range past 1,000 kilometers. Some will call it cheating. Others will call it practical.
Developed with SAIC Volkswagen, the ID. ERA is laser-focused on China — a market where EV infrastructure is growing fast, but not always evenly. So offering a safety net, range-wise, makes a lot of sense. It’s a very different path than rivals like BYD or NIO, which are all-in on long-range pure electric.
Volkswagen's ID. ERA Concept introduces a range-extending electric SUV with over 1,000 km combined range.
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The design features a boxy silhouette with split LED headlights and a wrap-around greenhouse.
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Developed by SAIC Volkswagen, it's tailored for the Chinese market's growing demand for versatile EVs.
There’s no official interior walkaround yet, but if recent VW concepts are anything to go by, expect the usual wide screens, minimal buttons, and digital-first thinking. Hopefully, with better software this time around.
This isn’t a showstopper concept dripping in carbon fiber and promises. It’s restrained, maybe even intentionally dull in places — but that’s kind of the point. Volkswagen’s saying: here’s a big family EV that works in the real world, not just one that looks good in renders.
Is it exciting? Maybe not. But is it clever? Definitely. And in a crowded field of samey-looking crossovers, that might be enough to matter.