Volkswagen has begun work on upgrades for its Wolfsburg production facility, totaling roughly $485.3 million by 2025. VW's new CEO Thomas Schafer made the announcement on Wednesday and says that the investment is largely to prepare Wolfsburg for the ID.3, Europe's smaller, hatch-y cousin to the Volkswagen ID.4.

The Volkswagen ID.3 will begin production at Wolfsburg next year, with full production capacity reached by 2025. The brand will also have to train its workforce to produce the new model. More interestingly, Volkswagen has said that after 2025, an all-electric SUV is coming, which will also sit on the brand's Modular Electric Drive System (MEB) platform.

"Volkswagen stands for electromobility for everyone. And Wolfsburg will be part of this success story. Here at our main plant alone, we will be investing some €460 million by the beginning of 2025, getting the factory ready for the MEB. The ID.3 ramp-up is the first important step towards the electrification of our main plant," said Schafer.

"At the same time, we are working closely with the Works Council to bring a further electric model based on the MEB+ to Wolfsburg - this will be a high-volume model for the booming SUV segment. With these strong decisions and investments, we intend to bolster the competitiveness of this factory further and give the workforce a concrete long-term perspective," Schafer continued.

We likely won't be getting an ID.3 here in the US, so for now let's focus on the SUV. It will not be, however, the upcoming Scout SUV even though the production timelines line up with the projections VW has given here. However, the Scout will not be using the MEB platform.

Whatever the SUV is, Schafer says it will "ideally complement our best-selling ID.4 and ID.5." The CEO also mentions the Tiguan briefly, which could hint at the upcoming model's size. We'll have to wait for more information as Wolfsburg prepares for the new model.