2023 VW Aero B wears camo and fake exhaust in latest spy photos

Tesla Model 3 has a growing group of competitors - we have the award winning Hyundai Ioniq 5, we have the Swedish Polestar 2 trying to pull some customers away from Tesla and soon we'll have VW joining the squabble. The latest model from the German automaker was spotted testing on public roads and wearing quite unusual camouflage.

Looking closely at the photos we can see a number of white stickers trying to cover up the shape of the car and blur the body lines in places. Both front and rear lights are covered in stickers that try to make them look as if they came from a VW Jetta. The theme continues with the front where we can clearly see the Jetta style grille printed and plastered over a solid surface. The VW art team had a busy day and honestly did a decent job, from a distance untrained eye wouldn’t even pay much attention to this car.

The best bit is saved for the end - literally. Underneath the fake rear lights, on the rear bumper we noticed a shiny chrome exhaust surround that again, clearly is nothing more than a sticker. Points for imagination go to the VW team. So what is this car then?

Volkswagen was meant to unveil a new, production ready prototype at Beijing Motor Show this year and as we know the show was cancelled. Undeterred VW carried on and what we see is the prototype with full production body, it is a more likely 5 door liftback designed to compete with Tesla Model 3. It was first shown to the world as VW ID.Aero - at this point there is no information out there as to which name will be used but with Volkswagen pushing “ID.” brand it seems the prototype’s name may stick around.

The car in the photos looks like it’s sitting a little bit lower than the VW ID.5, the door handles are clearly the same as on the ID.4 and the ID.5 and we can see that there are drum brakes behind rear wheels - clear sign of MEB platform. The ID.Aero was designed actually for Chinese market where it will replace the ageing Passat and this may be its ticket to the rest of the world although VW is adamant the global Passat replacement will only come as wagon, or estate - depending which part of the world you are reading this article from.

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