Surprising: there is a good chance that an electric Volkswagen Golf will come on the market, which will replace the current Golf in 2028. Are those plans the death knell for the Volkswagen ID.3?
Let’s be honest, Volkswagen would be crazy to throw away the model name Golf. Still, everything pointed to that in 2019. The current, eighth generation seemed to be the last Golf. The facelift of 2024, adapting the Golf to Euro7 emission requirements, would then be the last convulsion of this famous model.
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New Golf becomes EV
But the Golf does get an electric successor, which is also simply called Golf. That reports the British Autocar after a conversation with the highest Volkswagen boss Thomas Schäfer. The electric Golf would come on the market in 2028, with the new SSP platform as the basis. The platform supports fast charging with 800 volts. This allows the Golf to handle a much higher fast charging power than 175 kW, which is currently the maximum of the current MEB platform. Fast charging from 10 to 80 percent with an electric Volkswagen now takes about 35 minutes, the electric Golf completes that job almost three times as fast.
What will happen to the ID.3?
Of Volkswagen ID.3 is now the electric alternative to the Golf, although Schäfer sees it differently. Due to the large price difference with the Golf, the ID.3 is a kind of ‘Golf Plus’, according to him.
The question is what will happen to the ID.3 if the Golf gets an electric powertrain. According to Schäfer, there are two scenarios: the name ID.3 will be retained, but not for a compact mid-sized car. It is not clear which body shape the ID.3 would get. The other scenario is that the ID.3 disappears completely, so that the Golf is ultimately Volkswagen’s only electric mid-sized car.
The electric Volkswagen Golf fits into the strategy of making the brand a ‘love brand’ again. The ninth generation will therefore not have a radically different design, as the ID.3 had. The appearance is more in line with the designs of the eight generations earlier. Schäfer even promised that he will have physical buttons on the dashboard. It is precisely the lack of it in the ID.3 that has tested the Volkswagen love of many fans of the brand …