Volkswagen May Extend Petrol Golf's Lifespan to 2035

TapTechNews July 31, the ID.2all concept car released by Volkswagen in 2023 gives us a glimpse of the future pure electric Golf. Now, according to Volkswagen engineers, the lifespan of the petrol version of the Golf may be extended to 2035 and will not be discontinued with the arrival of the pure electric version.

Kai Grünitz, a member of the Volkswagen Board of Technical Development, said in an interview with TopGearNL that before the EU bans the sale of petrol cars in 2035, the current Golf, or at least its upgraded version, may continue to be produced. Although synthetic fuels may provide a way out for some petrol cars, it is more likely to save petrol supercars rather than ordinary petrol sedans, hatchbacks and SUVs.

In addition, Grünitz expects that the current eighth-generation Golf will not have a successor model. This generation of Golf was released in 2019 and has recently been facelifted, meaning that the current-generation Golf may be in production for as long as fifteen years.

The reason why Volkswagen wants to keep the petrol version of the Golf is not difficult to understand. On the one hand, the demand for electric vehicles from consumers has not reached the expected level of car companies, while the sales of the Golf have recently soared. In the first half of this year, the sales of the Golf in Europe increased by 43% and ranked second in the sales list, second only to the inexpensive Dacia Sandero. Volkswagen's T-Roc and Tiguan SUVs did not grow at all in the first half of the year, while the sales of the Tesla Model Y, the best-selling model in Europe last year, dropped by 26% and fell to the eighth place.

TapTechNews noted that Volkswagen has confirmed that it will launch electric models of the GTI brand in the future, hoping that if the petrol version of the Golf can continue to be produced for ten more years, the GTI and R versions can also be retained together.