VW ID.4 electric crossover will be aimed at RAV4 shoppers

Volkswagen has been clear about its aims for its generation of affordable electric vehicles, denoted by names starting with "ID" and underpinned by the automaker’s flexible, modular MEB architecture: Electric cars for millions, not millionaires. 

So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the Volkswagen ID.4, the first of these models bound for the U.S. and due to arrive before the end of the year, is positioned not to take on the Tesla Model Y but instead to offer an alternative to a set of vehicles that each outsell the Model Y by nearly an order of magnitude: the Honda CR-V, the Toyota RAV4, or the Chevrolet Equinox, for instance. 

That compact crossover SUV segment encompassing those models remains one of the fastest-growing and bestselling portions of the U.S. auto market. 

“While we certainly looked to Tesla for inspiration on the customer experience, we’re certainly not looking to their customer base as our playing field,”  Duncan Movassaghi, the executive vice president of sales and marketing at Volkswagen of America, said Wednesday.