This news comes courtesy of AutoExpress<\/a>, and it\u2019s alarming for several reasons. First, again, the ID.3 isn\u2019t exactly a bargain, starting at the equivalent of $41,770, but it\u2019s also no Mercedes EQE. Second, as the article points out, the car is registered at 228 hp stock, which affects insurance rates, even though owners only get 201 hp before subscribing. So, you\u2019re paying a penalty on your insurance premium based on power that you can only access if you give Volkswagen yet more money every month.<\/p>\n This monthly fee also lifts torque from the standard 195 lb-ft to 228 lb-ft, and VW says that the increase in output doesn\u2019t impact range\u2014so at least there\u2019s that. The optional software upgrade applies to all trims of the ID.3 except for the speedy GTX variant, which has around 320 horsepower and costs $21,600 more. All told, that\u2019s roughly $63K\u2014for VW\u2019s smallest EV! And you thought the Golf R<\/a> was pricey. The more I learn about this thing, the less sad I am that it\u2019s not offered in the States.<\/p>\n The best outcome we can hope for in these cases is that the outcry against it becomes so loud that VW relents. That\u2019s worked to some degree on this side of the pond, with BMW\u2019s heated-seat policies<\/a>. But the retractions don\u2019t last forever, and automakers are pretty much set on biding their time until software-locking everything is normalized, and they can get away with all of it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Got tips? Send \u2019em to\u00a0tips@thedrive.com<\/p>\n Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site\u2019s slate of daily stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get The Drive\u2019s daily newsletter The latest car news, reviews, and features. Subscriptions are coming for us all,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":151888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,18690,284,89047,67,132,68,20144],"class_list":["post-151887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-compact","tag-electric-vehicle","tag-hatchback","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-volkswagen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115041467477642320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DB2024AU01308_large-copy.jpg\")
Side note: This is a $63,000 car. Hendryk Meyer\/Volkswagen<\/p>\n