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Intelligent Design Gets Its Own Car

Photo: A Volkswagen ID.4, by harry_nl, via Flickr (cropped).

Today has an automobile theme, it appears. Earlier, Granville Sewell wrote, “More on Self-Replicating Machines.” Now our colleague Daniel Reeves points out that intelligent design has its own car, or cars: Volkswagen’s ID series, which are electric vehicles that have gone through several iterations. They’re now on the 2022 ID.4. Yes, it stands for “intelligent design.”

press release from VW explains, “The name is revealing: the ID. abbreviation stands for intelligent design, identity and visionary technologies and the number 4 identifies the new model as a representative of the compact SUV segment.”

The websites of some of our Seattle-area VW dealerships are reticent about acknowledging this. I suppose that customers locally will simply have to wonder. A dealer in Ohio, though, sees it as a selling point: “[T]he ID in Volkswagen’s new lineup stands for ‘intelligent design’ — among other things. The ID.4 is a great example of this.”

Daniel is a longtime VW driver, and comments: “From my first car (a 1998 Passat) to my present and fourth VW (a 2012 Jetta TDI), I’ve always said that these are well-designed cars — simple, elegant, and made of high-quality materials.” (No, “TDI” doesn’t stand for The Discovery Institute.)

Speaking of cars, evolution, and ID, the other day I saw on the back of a Subaru in Bellevue a bumper sticker reading, “Let’s Go, Darwin.“ Intrigued, I couldn’t tell whether to infer that the driver is an ID proponent, or an evolution fan who doesn’t get the “Let’s go, Brandon” reference. Actually, it’s neither. The slogan, as I learned in looking it up, expresses a nasty sentiment, wishing death on people whose politics and vaccine status you don’t like; see here. Charming.