Volkswagen has been steadily paving the road for an onslaught of electric vehicles – first with a string of concept cars, and most recently with still-disguised photos of the first production model to come. But what will it look like once the camouflage has been unwrapped?

Leave it to the army of rendering artists to fill in the visual gaps, as the prolific Kleber Silva has done for us here, giving us what could be our best preview yet of the forthcoming ID.3 that's set to launch VW into the electric-vehicle market next year.

Set the debut at the 2019 Frankfurt Auto Show this fall, the ID.3 will be the first in a string of dedicated electric vehicles to come from Volkswagen. It takes the form of a Golf-style hatchback, targeted directly at the likes of the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model 3.

The hype has been such that the German automaker took in 10,000 deposits for the ID.3 within 24 hours of the pre-order books opening (in a first for Volkswagen) – still months before the vehicle's unveiled in full. Each of those eager customers has paid a thousand-euro deposit towards the <€40,000 purchase price.

Once those initial 30,000 first editions have been delivered, VW will expand availability with an entry price starting under €30k. That works out to $33,600 in equivalent US funds, but it remains to be seen whether the ID.3 will even be offered in America. Whatever the likelihood, however, you can bet that subsequent members of the ID family will reach these shores, bringing with them a more varied array of body-styles to offer electric mobility to the mass market in the same way that the Beetle and Golf put Volkswagen on the scene and made it one of the world's largest automakers.

If you're interested, you can take a look at the top electric cars suitable for families.