Bad news for millions of consumers: In the medium term, the VW Group no longer sees cars with combustion engines as a cost-effective alternative to electric cars. The car giant expects prices to rise as a result of further tightened emission standards. Golf fans even have to adjust to the end of the successful model.
The new head of the Volkswagen brand, Thomas Schäfer, expects vehicle prices to rise significantly as a result of the planned EU emissions standard Euro 7. Combustion vehicles would each be 3,000 to 5,000 euros more expensive due to the more complex exhaust gas cleaning, he told the “Welt am Sonntag”. Top manager Schäfer has a second piece of bad news: “These additional costs can hardly be absorbed with a small car.” Entry prices of 10,000 euros will no longer exist in the future.
From 2025, the Volkswagen Group wants to bring four electric small car models onto the market, said Schäfer. In addition to the ID.2, there will be another model from VW, a Skoda and a Cupra. VW wants to offer the ID.2 “for less than 25,000 euros”. The range of the electric vehicles should then be at least 350 kilometers.
Schäfer did not want to commit himself to a future new edition of the Golf, Europe’s best-selling car. Reason for his reluctance: The political guidelines are moving in the direction of e-mobility. The state is promoting this with high purchase premiums, and customer demand is developing correspondingly turbulently. This development does not guarantee that “it is worthwhile to develop a new vehicle that does not reach the full seven or eight years,” said Schäfer.
Volkswagen launched the Golf in 1974. In the almost five decades of its existence, the group has sold tens of millions of vehicles from its successful model.
