The four-wheel drive sports car combines its ambassadorial role for the future, electric I.D. family with the sportiest range of Volkswagen products, the R GmbH models.
At the same time, it is also the first step towards an intensification of the cooperation between Volkswagen R and Volkswagen Motorsport.
The Volkswagen brand plans to offer more than 20 fully-electric cars by 2025. Manufacturing of the first production model in the I.D. family is scheduled to start at the end of 2019 in Zwickau, in the Saxony region of Germany.
"It is about time we settled the score," said Volkswagen Motorsport Director, Sven Smeets. "The I.D. R Pikes Peak represents an extremely exciting challenge for us, to show what is possible with an electric engine in motorsport. The entire team behind our driver Romain Dumas is highly motivated to set a new record for electric cars."
Volkswagen last entered the Pikes Peak hill climb in 1987 with a spectacular dual-engine Golf, which generated an impressive 652 hp. However, the Wolfsburg-based manufacturer narrowly missed out on success.
The record in the electric prototype class currently stands at 8:57.118 minutes and was set in 2016 by New Zealand's Rhys Millen.
