olkswagen is phasing out its ID.4 electric SUV in Canada and the U.S., the company confirmed today.
The automaker said North American production of the ID.4 at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee will be curtailed starting next week and eventually eliminated. The company does add that existing inventory on the model should keep it available to North American customers who want one into 2027.
Production of the model will continue in Europe, but VW does not have plans to import any of those into the market here.
Sales of the ID.4 stagnated and then fell substantially in the past year in the U.S., a victim of increasing competition but especially the hostile political environment in the U.S. towards electric vehicles. In both the U.S.
Not the end
This doesn’t mean a complete withdrawal from North America of Volkswagen’s entry in the electric compact SUV segment. The German automaker has already confirmed it plans a follow-up to the ID.4 that will be sold here. There’s been speculation it may adopt the name ID. Tiguan, but whatever the name it gets on the back, the next EV in this all-important segment will be more modern and presumably better equipped to compete against the increasingly ferocious competition.
In the short term, however, dropping the slow-selling current ID.4 fits in with Volkswagen’s recent public commitment to focusing on vehicles that generate high sales volumes. It also frees up production capacity at the Chattanooga plant, which will take on production of the refreshed 2027 Atlas SUV, which happens to be the brand’s second-best selling model in North America.