Arteon

Make
Volkswagen
Segment
Sedan

Volkswagen has been steadily accelerating its electrification push as the demand for cleaner vehicles increases. The latest to be revealed is the ID.Buzz, which looks great and seems to have the substance to back up its styling. It seems that, with the ID.4 and the rest of Volkswagen's new generation of EVs, the brand is hitting the nail on the head for feature-rich yet fuss-free vehicles that do their jobs well. Sure, some people won't like the styling, and some have clamored for more exciting innovations to be offered in these EVs, but that's what premium products are for. Products like the dead-in-America Passat and its electric counterpart which, thanks to comments made at the brand's Annual Media Conference, we now know will launch in 2023.

First of all, allow us to apologize for the quality of the image. It's a screenshot of a larger image briefly shown during the aforementioned conference, so the resolution is very low.

The vehicle in question has been in the works for some time now, having first been teased in March 2018 at the Geneva Auto Show. At that event, what we saw was called the ID.Vizzion concept, and over the following months, we saw a number of follow-up teasers that suggested a sexy profile and plenty of luxury and space. Things have changed since then, and the car - believed to be codenamed Aero B - has been caught testing with slightly less dramatic styling than the original sketches suggested. Nevertheless, it looks great and could be the prettiest VW of its generation, electric or otherwise.

Now that we have some context on the car and what it is, we can address the announcement from Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess that it will go on sale in 2023.

With the ID.Vizzion arriving next year, Europeans may be concerned about the Passat, but that car still has a long life to live. As for the name of the car, we think that Volkswagen will hold onto the ID. prefix but will drop the Vizzion name. Typically, names like that are used and reused for various concepts. Then again, the double zee in the name would tie in nicely to that of the ID.Buzz.

Whatever Germany decides to name the car, we're expecting a liftback layout similar to what you get on the Volkswagen Arteon. The luxury EV may be followed up with a station wagon derivative, possibly called the ID.Space Vizzion, but we expect to be able to bring you concrete details very soon, likely with another teaser image accompanying the info.