From the GNU docs:

dir is equivalent to ls -C -b; that is, by default files are listed in columns, sorted vertically, and special characters are represented by backslash escape sequences.

(source)

vdir is equivalent to ls -l -b; that is, by default files are listed in long format and special characters are represented by backslash escape sequences.

(source)

Instead of making entirely separate utilities, we should probably just make these shorthands for ls much like how hashsum and test are set up.