The VW ID.7—a new electric motor and a streamlined sedan shape

Enlarge / Volkswagen has established the "face" of its ID electric vehicles—because there's no mistaking this for anything else. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

NEW YORK—On Monday morning, Volkswagen introduced its next new electric vehicle with simultaneous events in New York, Shanghai, and Berlin. It's called the ID.7, and it will go on sale in Europe and China later this year and in North America in 2024. It's a fairly substantial thing—more than a foot longer than the ID.4 crossover that VW now builds in Chattanooga—with a low-drag shape and some powertrain refinements that VW says will make the car highly efficient.

But it will face stiff competition in the electric sedan market, up against the established juggernaut that is the Tesla Model 3, not to mention Hyundai's excellent new Ioniq 6.

Its curves are more rounded than you'd see on a Model 3 or Ioniq 6, but the ID.7 is similarly low-drag. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

This is not our first view of the ID.7—VW showed it off underneath luminescent camouflage back in January. It's a big car—longer even than the VW Arteon sedan at 195.3 inches (4,961 mm), with a 116.8-inch (2,967 mm) wheelbase. It's relatively wide at 73.3 inches (1,852), but it also has a relatively low roofline at 60.6 inches (1,539 mm) that helps keep the frontal area down to 2.45 m2 in order to make the most of the ID.7's drag coefficient of 0.23.