It was only a few months ago that Volkswagen was showing teasers of the next-gen electric Golf to folks behind closed doors, but a new report now claims development on said vehicle is suspended until further notice—a development pause that is one of the many cuts being made by the Volkswagen Group as it looks to save cash amid financial pressures.
The hatchback, which was exxpected to be named ID.Golf, was meant to be the electric successor to the ID.3. Reuters reports that it viewed a memo written by CEO Thomas Schaefer that revealed the delay. “I know what the Golf means for Volkswagen and for Wolfsburg. That’s why this decision was really not an easy one for us,” the internal memo reportedly said. “We simply can’t afford this work right now.”
Whether or not Volkswagen would sell the supposed ID.Golf in the U.S. remains a question. We haven’t seen a standard Golf on sale here since the introduction of the current Mk.8 generation; the GTI and Golf R performance variants live on, thankfully, but an electric version sure would open the discussion back up to bringing the mainstream version to American shores again.
VW
But the news is a large blow to those in Europe who might’ve been expecting a successor to the ID.3 before the end of the decade. VW recently revealed the ID.3 Neo (above) that brought sweeping changes to the car, at least ensuring there will be an electric, Golf-like car on sale across the Pond for some time. Still, the jump to the ID.Golf is meant to be a large one, as VW planned the new model along with a transition to a new Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) architecture.
The caveat to this news is that VW is expressing this as simply a delay in development. That means the company is still planning on picking things up at a later date, so presumably, an ID.Golf is still in the product roadmap. We just don’t know when it could arrive.
A Michigan-born car nut and racing enthusiast, Zac Palmer is talking about or thinking about cars somewhere. He bought his first when he was still 15, a 2001 Acura Integra GS-R that still resides in the garage today. It’s now joined by a 2004 Porsche Boxster S, and there will be even less practical additions to follow. Palmer worked at both Autoweek and Autoblog before joining R&T.