Like many automakers, Volkswagen has trimmed its car lineup in favor of crossovers and SUVs, but now the market is gearing up for another significant shift: The move to electrification. To get there, VW is targeting another car in its catalog. A report from Automotive News notes that the Arteon will be discontinued in favor of a new electric sedan based on the ID.Aero concept car.
Volkswagen introduced the Arteon as a replacement for the CC, but neither really caught on in the U.S. market. The automaker sold fewer than 200 Arteons in the first half of this year, which indicates that its time has passed. Several interesting Arteon variants are offered in other countries, including an R model and a shooting brake, but Americans tend to miss out on the coolest wagons because we don’t buy them.
The Arteon’s replacement will be an electric sedan with a 77-kWh battery and a range nearing 400 miles per charge, using the European WLTP standard. It will follow the ID.4 crossover and upcoming ID.Buzz van here, but it’s unclear when the car will arrive and how it will be packaged for the American market.
Volkswagen has invested billions in its EV production infrastructure and has many more on the way. Its factory in Chattanooga gained a new Battery Engineering Lab earlier this year, and the company has earned a significant chunk of the EV market in just the last few years. It’s still behind Tesla on total sales, but the automaker has cornered more than ten percent of the market overall.