Herbert Diess’s turbulent tenure as Volkswagen Group CEO is now seen by many in Wolfsburg as having been a disaster. Diess, the former BMW executive who was appointed to the top job at Volkswagen in 2015, oversaw the company’s dramatic pivot to EVs and the establishment of an in-house software development division, Cariad. Neither has so far been an outright success.
The current VW brand MEB-platform EVs are big, heavy, expensive, and not particularly well packaged for occupants and cargo. Worse, the Volkswagen branded ID models look dowdy and downmarket compared with their rivals.
Demand for the IDs, once touted by Diess as the future of the Volkswagen brand in the aftermath of the Dieselgate scandal, has been running at about 30 percent lower than forecasts. Citing what it calls “strong consumer reluctance,” Volkswagen recently announced a temporary halt in the production—at its plant in Emden, Germany—of its ID4 SUV and the new ID7 sedan, a car that isn’t even on sale in most markets yet. It would seem Andreas Mindt has his work cut out.
Appointed head of Volkswagen Design in February 2023, Andreas Mindt started his career at the brand in 1996 after graduating from the Pforzheim University School of Design. He stayed there until 2014, working on, among other things, the first-generation Tiguan SUV, and the Mk 7 Golf, before moving to Audi, where he led the development of a crisp new design language across the brand’s entire model portfolio.
The affable and animated Mindt was appointed head of Bentley Design in 2021, where he oversaw the design of the Mulliner-built Bentley Batur coupe, a car intended to signpost the storied British brand’s future design direction. “I wanted to stay there longer,” says Mindt of his two-year stint at Crewe. “My aim was to be there five years or so and create Bentleys that you can see on the street.”
But the crisis at Volkswagen saw Diess’ replacement, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume, recall Mindt to Wolfsburg. “I was maybe planning to come back to Volkswagen later,” Mindt admits, “but now is the right moment; the right moment to do Volkswagen design…” He pauses a beat. “And change it.”
Mindt acknowledges Volkswagen’s ID models aren’t loved like the feisty Mk1 Golf GTI, the original hot hatch, or a 23-window Microbus, highly restored versions of which are now worth more than $200,000. And a big part of the problem, he readily admits, is the way they look.
Suggest to Volkswagen’s design boss that apart from the cleverly retro-vibe Buzz minivan and the faintly Golf-inspired ID.3 hatch, the ID Volkswagens seem over-wrought and over-bodied, and you won’t get much of an argument. What he does say, however, is the cars look the way they do because they were designed when EVs were for early adopters, people who were okay with getting outside the automotive comfort zone. “EVs are now 15 percent of the global market, and more than 50 percent of the market in China. This is not an early adopter business anymore.”
There’s some careful post-rationalization going on here. In 2016, as Volkswagen Group began to unveil details of its EV strategy and design work on the ID models was already underway in Wolfsburg, the company was claiming it would have 30 new EVs on sale across all its brands by 2025 and selling two to three million of them a year. Those are not toe-in-the-water numbers. Volkswagen was talking about EVs as a mainstream product, accounting for 20 to 25 percent of the company’s sales.
That said, Mindt’s underlying point is valid: EVs no longer need to look weirdly different. These days they are just cars or SUVs or pickup trucks without an internal combustion engine. “You don’t need to convince people,” he says of designing an electric vehicle. “You don’t need to do artificial things, be over-keen. Just calm down. Just make it good, make it fit, and it will work.”
For evidence, he points to the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Volkswagen ID2all concept designed under his direction and revealed earlier this year. The ID2all’s proportion and surfacing evoke classic Golf models such as the Mk 4 and Mk7. It doesn’t look like an electric car. And that, says Mindt, is the key to its appeal.
The ID2all, which previews the production ID2 compact EV hatch scheduled to go on sale in 2026, also signposts the future design direction for the next generation of Volkswagen ID models to be designed under Mindt’s direction “I want to get this kind of stance in the whole portfolio,” he says, pointing to how the bodywork is pulled over the wide track, but also how the hood and windshield are more conventionally proportioned. “There was a trend for short hoods and long windshields; everyone believed this should be the design for electric cars,” he says. “But it is not.”
The ID2all also points to a welcome return to Volkswagen interiors with a quality look and feel on Mindt’s watch. The hard, cheap plastics that blight the current ID models are going, he insists; clean surfaces with soft trim are coming back.
“We can make nice cars for nice people,” Mindt says. “That’s what we did, and that’s what we have to do.” He believes that Volkswagens should, like Bill Mitchell-era Chevys of the 60s—and like the Ferdinand Piech-era Golfs and Passats of the late 90s—be cars that look and feel more expensive than they are. “This is the secret sauce,” he says. “The car is better than you expect, and you start to love it. Our aim is to be the love brand.”
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