If you see a car on the road with a golden Volkswagen logo, don't be skeptical; it's not an owner's whimsical personal touch but a brand-new Volkswagen that completely deviates from everyone's established impressions.

On July 17th, the ID. series was officially launched, marking the beginning of Volkswagen Anhui, which adopts a "gold standard" from product to service, choosing the most straightforward way to convey its car-making philosophy and brand value to users. True to its name, in addition to the gleaming golden logo, the first model of Volkswagen Anhui, named "Yuzhong," also emphasizes this point. In the new energy vehicle market, where the homogenization of driving experiences is becoming increasingly apparent, this is particularly important.

Spending time with the ID. Yuzhong easily resonates with the saying, "Beautiful appearances are a dime a dozen, but interesting souls are a rarity." With Volkswagen's foundation, manufacturing a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable car to drive is not a challenge for Volkswagen Anhui. Its mission has always been to create a new category of smart electric vehicles and thereby open up a new lifestyle for young users.

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It's worth mentioning that the term "young users" here is not defined by traditional demographic characteristics. Yang Fang, CEO of Volkswagen Anhui Digital Sales Services Co., Ltd., stated, "To be precise, we focus more on defining our target customer group from their attitudes and mindsets. In short, it can be understood that our target users are a group of consumers with a young mindset; they are genuine, confident, and empathetic."

It should be noted that for any enterprise, aligning with users in terms of values and temperament is an extremely challenging task. Volkswagen Anhui has put in extra patience, effort, and dedication to achieve this. This also explains why, compared to price, the ID. Yuzhong places more emphasis on the presentation of value.

As Yang Fang said, at the product level, the ID. Yuzhong boasts dynamic aesthetics, scenario intelligence, agile handling, and gold-standard quality, which is just one aspect that sets it apart from competitors. In addition, they also provide users with value empowerment regarding lifestyle and the support of an ecosystem, all of which will accompany users throughout their entire journey and lifecycle of car ownership, which is the unique selling point of the ID. Yuzhong.

Furthermore, attentive individuals will notice that the full name of Volkswagen Anhui Sales Company is different from other car manufacturers, with an additional "digital" in it, called "Volkswagen Anhui Digital Sales Services Co., Ltd." This is because it has a very powerful digital system based on the end-to-end user process in the background. It can digitize user touchpoints as much as possible, thereby enhancing the efficiency of enterprise services and enabling rapid iteration.Not only that, but in order to listen to customer needs at zero distance offline, Volkswagen Anhui has adopted a hybrid sales model of direct operation plus agency to ensure a rapid upgrade of user experience. As planned, Volkswagen Anhui will launch a concentrated product offensive in 2026, and these two years will also provide more ample space for its brand building, steadily getting closer to consumers. This more fully demonstrates Volkswagen's determination to implement the "In China, For China" strategy, as well as its commitment and confidence in accelerating the transformation to electrification.

01 Full of intelligence, ID. & Crowd subverts the "Volkswagen"

As the earliest foreign brand to produce in China, Volkswagen has accompanied Chinese consumers for 40 years, with a cumulative user base of over 50 million people. The Chinese people's perception of Volkswagen is more deeply rooted: reliable, quality, and safe. "These DNAs will of course continue to be reflected in ID. & Crowd, but as an important member of the Volkswagen product portfolio and another piece of the puzzle for Volkswagen's brand layout in China, we hope to provide a unique experience through this model," said Meng Xia, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Car Brand in China.

However, the industry's evaluation of ID. & Crowd is more concise and direct, in two words - subversion. First, the intelligent performance of this car has subverted people's traditional perception of Volkswagen; second, the car's tuning and protection of driving pleasure have subverted people's monotonous narrative of pure electric models. As a user who has purchased a new energy vehicle for the second time said, "Can electric cars also be so exciting to drive?"

Indeed, at the beginning of the design of ID. & Crowd, the core task was to achieve comprehensive evolution and become a truly fun smart car. As the first model of Volkswagen to be equipped with the ID.S 5.0 car machine system, ID. & Crowd's smart cockpit fully adopts the UNYX.OS operating system. The brand-new HMI interaction and flat design allow users to experience more intuitive operation logic, making it easy to get started and interact smoothly.

In terms of in-vehicle intelligent voice interaction, ID. & Crowd uses a personalized AI intelligent partner for each person, allowing the vehicle to establish a more interesting voice interaction experience with users. Users can not only highly customize the PTA personalized image of the intelligent assistant but also set it according to personal preferences through face shaping, dressing up, actions, real person voice cloning, etc., to create a personal exclusive AI intelligent partner.

In addition, the new generation of cognitive intelligent large language models in cooperation with iFLYTEK has endowed the AI partner with cross-domain knowledge and natural language understanding capabilities, making human-computer interaction more humanized. What's more considerate is that ID. & Crowd has connected the calendar reminders in the one-App, turning the vehicle into a real AI intelligent partner, so that users will not miss important moments even on the road.In the realm of intelligent driving, the ID. series comes standard with the IQ. Drive smart driving assistant across the entire lineup. With the Travel Assist 3.0 full-journey driving assistance system (including interactive lane change assistance), Emergency Assist 3.0 emergency assistance system, ACC full-speed adaptive cruise control, Front Assist front collision prevention system, Lane Assist lane keeping assistance system, Side Assist lane change assistance system, and DOW departure warning system, among other comprehensive driving aids, and supported by Volkswagen's latest cross-visual fusion algorithms and perception systems, the ID. series offers effortless intelligent protection throughout the journey. In terms of automatic parking, the ID. series also excels.

Thanks to the standard IQ. Park parking assistant, as well as a total of 12 ultrasonic sensors (6 front and 6 rear) and Top View 360° panoramic imaging, the vehicle can confidently handle both 180° parallel parking and 90° perpendicular parking spaces. Additionally, the ID. series is equipped with remote parking functions, as well as memory parking and intelligent vehicle location features, allowing users to completely eliminate any troubles that parking might bring.

02 Strengthening High Quality, Volkswagen Anhui Embarks on a New Mission

The comprehensive advancement of intelligence is certainly a pleasant surprise for Volkswagen fans, and for consumers of more pure electric models, the unique control and driving quality of the ID. series are even more valuable.

This is mainly due to the ID. series being equipped with Volkswagen's latest high-performance chassis system, including the DCC adaptive chassis control system and MEB dual-stage flexible vibration isolation system, which achieves smoother power delivery and more stable control, providing users with a more confident driving experience and a higher-grade driving quality. The 50:50 front-to-rear weight distribution allows the vehicle to handle more gracefully during acceleration, braking, and cornering.

To meet the driving needs of different users, the ID. series offers five driving modes, including Sport, Economy, Comfort, Individual, and Dynamic Traction modes. Drivers can choose different modes according to various road and weather conditions, enjoying a more personalized and safer driving experience.

In terms of endurance, the ID. series is equipped with an 82.4kWh high-capacity battery pack, with the rear-wheel-drive version achieving a maximum range of 621 kilometers under CLTC conditions, and the displayed range is truly reliable, with energy consumption of only 14.1 kWh per 100 kilometers.

Although the competition for new energy vehicles in the Chinese market has entered the second half, Volkswagen Anhui always believes that, fundamentally, "control" and "safety" are still the most important underlying logic of automobiles, and they are not contradictory to the development of intelligence.The ID. series, featuring the golden Volkswagen emblem for the first time, not only represents Volkswagen's latest breakthroughs in the fields of electrification and intelligence but also carries forward the brand's long-standing high standards and strict requirements for quality. Starting with the ID. series, Volkswagen has opened a new chapter in its intelligent pure electric vehicle category. According to Yang Fang, in addition to the first new car in the series, by 2026, this new category will introduce four more new models, including SUVs and sedans. Each model under this category will use a unique and eye-catching golden Volkswagen brand emblem, symbolizing Volkswagen Anhui's commitment to creating extraordinary and unforgettable golden moments for users.

At the new car launch event, Stefan Timmermann, Chief Operating Officer of Volkswagen (Anhui) Digital Sales Services Co., Ltd., emphasized that the ID. series is the right thing they are doing at the right time and place.

"In terms of cooperation, we will work together with Horizon Robotics, Chongqing C-DAC, and local partners to continuously expand our collaboration and build an ecosystem. Our ecosystem is deeply rooted in China's technology environment, and we bring all of these technologies into this ecosystem. We hope that different partners can work together to build the ecosystem, thereby bringing more and better products to the Chinese market." Stefan Timmermann is full of confidence in the Chinese market, and he also hopes that users will look forward to the golden badge Volkswagen.