After introducing the more affordable ID.3 Pure version in January of this year, Volkswagen has now made it unavailable. There is a reason behind it, according to the automaker, and that reason is the world wide semiconductor chip shortage that ha has affected most manufacturers.
The ID.3 Pure, which in Germany starts at just under €32,000 (before local incentives), has a 45 kWh battery pack, and the weakest motor available, putting out just 93 kW or 125 horsepower. It has a claimed WLTP range of 205 miles or 330 km and it can be charged at a maximum 50 kW.
Now those interested can only order the ID.3 with either the 58 kWh or 77 kWh battery pack and thus, the cheapest you can no get one of these vehicles new is €35,460 (incentives not included). Our German colleagues over at InsideEVs.de reached out to Volkswagen and this is what the manufacturer wrote back (translated from German via Google Traslate)
Due to the ongoing supply bottlenecks in semiconductors, there is currently limited availability of various entry-level models. As these versions are generally rarely chosen by customers - only around 2-3% of Golf buyers opt for the basic model of the Golf - Volkswagen decided to temporarily reduce the offer.
Vehicles that have already been ordered will of course be produced. New orders for the vehicles mentioned will be possible again at the beginning of next year. By reducing the number of variants, the high order backlog can also be processed more quickly so that delivery times are not extended any further.
However, in the original article published on the German version our site, they stated that this is not really a plausible explanation, rightfully asking if battery size pack had anything to do with the number of chips used in the vehicle's construction. It probably doesn't and the main reason could be the fact that the ID.3 Pure was not a very popular variant of the model and the automaker has higher profit margins on better-equipped versions; the Pure could have been dropped for good, in spite of what Volkswagen stated above.
More on the VW ID.3
Source: InsideEVs.de
