I think the modern replacement of VW in this respect might be Dacia. They are selling bare minimum cars at an affordable price. They just introduced the "Spring" which is a small 4-seated electric car starting below 20k€, after subsidies you can get it in Germany for less than 10k€.
Interesting. Dacia is in the Renault family. I enjoy seeing what Renault have been doing in Europe, though as an American it is mostly watching with envy. Their closest relative in the US is Nissan America and they are just awful and extremely out of touch. (They barely sell the Leaf and still haven't really brought any other of Nissan's EV efforts to the US market, and certainly don't have anything like the Renault Zoe much less a Dacia type low end model.)
