SUVs and pick-ups might be the dominant segments in the US but cars are still the best sellers in the world’s largest market. Volkswagen, which outsold second placed Nissan in China by two to one last year, delivered close to a million examples of its best sellers, the Lavida and Bora in 2019. In Europe, the new Golf and to a lesser extent the ID.3 mean 2020 will be a banner year for new cars from the VW brand.
It’s easy to forget that only a few years ago, Volkswagen was a laggard in SUVs and crossovers. Now its global range is not only vast but the company is still adding yet more models, the details of which will be discussed in the next report. However, nobody should overlook just how much effort Volkswagen continues to put into car segments.
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The VW brand is making sure it is ready for all eventualities, such as a partial move away from SUVs, something which appears to be already happening in China and even in the US with younger buyers. If Peak SUV has been reached, then this brand is ready for what follows, particularly if that also includes electric cars.
A segment
Even though it’s eight years old, the up! is still going strong. Popular in Europe and Brazil, this tiny hatchback will likely stay in production for a further two to three years. Brazil’s up! sits slightly higher than the Slovakian-made model, the tailgate is steel and glass instead of glass, and the rear windows wind down in five-door cars.
The return of the GTI is the latest news, build of this sports variant having been temporarily stopped in 2019. Its return is part of a mild facelift for the range which is being rolled out across European markets this month. The main exterior change is the new VW badge. There is also an eco-up! dual-fuel variant for certain countries which runs on petrol or CNG. See the electric car section below for the e-up! and details of how and when VW’s smallest model should be replaced.
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The seventh generation Polo is more than four years away, the current car having been in production only since September 2017. A mid-life update for generation six is due in just over a year’s time. There will almost certainly be some form of electrification; possibly a GTE plug-in hybrid as well as the new Golf’s mild hybrid powertrains. As for the successor, this should use an evolution of the MQB A0 (Zero) architecture.
The Virtus, a replacement for the Polo sedan, had its world premiere at an event in Brazil in November 2017. It went into production at VW do Brasil’s Anchieta plant during the same month. Sales commenced in January 2018 followed by exports to Mexico seven months later. There should be a facelift in 2022 and a successor in 2026.
C segment
The eighth generation Golf was revealed to the media in October last year with the first cars in German and Austrian dealerships from December.
The engine line up is as follows:
- 90PS 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol
- 81kW/110PS 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol (eTSI mild hybrid with 48V belt-driven starter-generator, lithium-ion battery and standard seven-speed DSG)
- 85kW/115PS 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel
- 96kW/130PS 1.5-litre four-cylinder TGI (CNG-petrol hybrid)
- 96kW/130PS 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol (eTSI)
- 110kW/150PS 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel (also available with 4MOTION-branded all-wheel drive)
- 110kW/150PS 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol (eTSI)
The GTI, GTI TCR, GTD and R – each powered by a 2.0-litre turbo – will be added later in 2020. Outputs should be:
- 180kW/245PS GTI
- 221kW/300PS GTI TCR
- 147kW/201PS GTD
- 245kW/328PS R
Standard features include a digital dashboard and an embedded modem which is linked to Volkswagen’s We Connect and We Connect Plus systems, so that the car is always connected. Owners are able to update the software over the air. Amazon Alexa also features.
The eighth generation Golf is the first Volkswagen to offer Car2X as standard. This means car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communication. It will warn the driver and the drivers of other cars of any hazards en route within a radius of 800m. The Golf 8 also has semi-autonomous functions although these are not standard. With this system, steering, acceleration and braking can be operated automatically at up to 210km/h on dual carriageways. As a safety measure, the driver must have at least one hand on the steering wheel at all times.
Cars for North America will be imports from Germany as the Puebla plant in Mexico won’t be making the eighth generation model. The US market will take only the Golf R and the Volkswagen GTI but the Canadian importer will also offer other versions but not until CY2021 for the 2022 model year. The relative popularity of the Golf SportWagen and Alltrack in Canada saw the importer taking the decision to stockpile roughly a year’s worth of supply of these cars. Production ceased in late 2019 and there is no replacement for the wagon. Therefore VW Canada will sell the 2019 model year cars until probably the end of CY2020.
In November 2017, the Volkswagen Group announced that its Zwickau-Mosel plant would in future build only electric vehicles, so the majority of Golf production in Germany is based at Wolfsburg. The new generation model will likely remain in production there until the arrival of the Golf mark nine in 2026 (expect a facelift in 2023).
The latest generation of FAW Volkswagen’s Bora became available in China in June 2018. This big selling model uses the same architecture and shares much with Shanghai Volkswagen’s Lavida. Both of these cars are C segment/Compact sedans.
The Bora is manufactured at FAW Volkswagen’s Jimo plant, close to Qingdao, a coastal city in eastern China’s Shandong province. This became the JV’s fifth manufacturing base when it was opened in May 2018. Qingdao also produces the electric Bora (see link to PLDB below for details of that car). Both Bora and Lavida are due for mid-cycle styling changes in 2022 and then should be replaced three years later.
D segment
The current Passat for China was announced in October 2018. This 4,933mm long sedan uses the MQB architecture and is manufactured by SAIC Volkswagen. Production at the Anting plant in Shanghai should continue until the final quarter of 2025, with a facelift in 2022.
The Passat for North America is the oldest of the three cars which use the name: the 2020 sedan which is right now rolling into dealerships is a major facelift of a car which has been in production at Volkswagen of America’s Chattanooga plant since 2011. This model, which has perhaps three more years of build remaining, seems unlikely to be directly replaced.
The Passat for Europe not only looks different to the sedans sold in North America and China but there is of course another major difference: it comes in estate form too, with the wagon by far the best selling body style in many key markets such as Germany. The current B8 series model, launched at the 2014 Paris motor show, was not facelifted until last year. Its replacement should arrive in 2022. A successor for China’s Magotan, which is a renamed, long-wheelbase sedan, likely won’t be launched until 2023 as the current generation didn’t become available until 2016.
In European countries and many others, the CC sedan was replaced by the Arteon. In China, where the model is manufactured and distributed by the FAW Volkswagen joint venture, the CC model name is used. There had been claims that a wagon would be added, complementing the hatchback, for years. Finally, such a car was confirmed in January 2020, at least for China. There, sources believe it will be called CC Travel Edition. Europe’s Arteon estate may instead be known as the Shooting Brake when it arrives in the second half of the year.
It is interesting that Volkswagen failed to mention the Arteon in a November 2018 media statement about what is to take place at the Emden plant which manufactures the current model. The Passat, it was announced (it too is manufactured at Emden) will move to Škoda’s Kvasiny plant. This either means that the Arteon will be axed or potentially reinvented for a second generation as an EV: Emden is to be retooled to manufacture MEB architecture models. All of this is some years away though as the car has only been in production since 2017. A facelift is therefore due in 2021 or 2022 and the successor in 2025.
E segment
The Phideon is the VW brand’s sole model in this size class. Details of this model can be found in PLDB (see end of this report).
Electric cars
What the company calls its strategic target of producing a million electric cars a year is now expected to be reached by the end of 2023. Volkswagen announced the new timetable in December: previously this number had been forecast to be reached in CY2025. Mid-decade still remains a key timeline as there is a second target: 1.5 million electric Volkswagen brand cars manufactured annually by the end of 2025. To get there, €11 billion is being spent on refitting plants and developing additional EVs.
The brand’s smallest electric car has been around since late 2013 and had a facelift in 2016. For that reason, it came as a surprise that Volkswagen gave the e-up! another, minor exterior makeover recently instead of launching a successor. Bigger changes happened out of sight though, so that now this tiny EV has a much improved range (up to 260km) thanks to the 18.7kWh battery having been replaced by one with a capacity of 32.3kWh.
It’s known that sub-20,000 euro EVs for several Volkswagen Group brands are being developed, each one based on a new version of MEB, the group’s electric vehicles platform. SEAT has been tasked with engineering the architecture, the company’s CEO announced in March last year. There should be vehicles for VW, Škoda, SEAT and Jetta.
The ‘ID-Entry’ will reportedly be revealed later in 2020 as a Volkswagen concept but a production model won’t appear until 2022, insiders have said. This car could replace the e-up!, with the model name potentially to be ID.1. As for an ID.2, that model could be a T-Cross sized EV rather than the Polo-sized hatchback which some say it might be.
The Golf will be the biggest selling new model to be launched in Europe this year but the ID.3 is just as important, for different reasons. Volkswagen hopes that this hatchback will win over those who have hitherto been reluctant to take the plunge into EV ownership.
Because the 4,261mm long ID.3 is only 23mm shorter than the new Golf and far larger than the Polo (4,053mm), there won’t be a replacement for the e-Golf. And even though build in Germany ceased during 2019, as Chinese production only began six months ago, FAW Volkswagen should continue making the electric Golf until at least the second half of 2020 and possibly even into 2021.
Returning to the ID.3, production started at the Zwickau plant in Germany in November. This factory, also known as Mosel, once produced Trabants. By the end of 2021, its annual capacity will have risen to 330,000 electric vehicles produced on behalf of various Volkswagen AG brands. The ‘Glass House’ plant (Glaeserne Manufaktur) in Dresden will also make the ID.3 and certain other future ID. models, Volkswagen told the media in November. ID.3 build is scheduled to commence there in “fall 2020”.
Even though build at Zwickau started on 4 November, all cars are being stockpiled as customer deliveries will not begin until the summer. That is said to be due to a software issue. Meanwhile, although there is no production of this model in China as yet, SAIC Volkswagen will manufacture the ID.3 at its Anting plant from later this year.
Customers in European markets may choose one of three versions, each of which comes with an eight-year/160,000km battery warranty. They are:
- 47kWh battery pack, ‘Pure’ model grade with a range of up to 330km (WLTP)
- 58kWh, 150kW and 310Nm, WLTP range of up to 420km (the high-priced ‘Launch Edition’ has this pack), 160km/h top speed
- 77kWh S with a range of up to 550km (the S will also be a four-seater but it is not clear why: possibly the added weight of the big battery means that a fifth occupant would exceed the legal load carrying capacity)
Not just the ID.3 but all other forthcoming ID. project vehicles built in Germany have or will have their battery packs supplied from Volkswagen’s Braunschweig plant. The Volkswagen Group’s oldest manufacturing facility (it opened in 1938) would produce ‘up to 500,000 EV battery packs per year’, the firm stated in April 2018. Prior to this new assignment, Brunswick (the city’s English language name), south west of Wolfsburg has manufactured and/or assembled suspension components, steering systems and battery packs.
Will there be an electric successor for the Beetle? Nothing is official and for now, the company’s only retro model will be the electric Microbus but this has not stopped rumours and speculation that an MEB platform ‘ID. Bugg‘ may be pencilled in for 2023. The thinking is that Volkswagen could build a business case around reinventing the silhouette with four doors and return the model to its roots with rear-wheel drive.
VW revealed a prototype of an electric Microbus at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in January 2016. The company hinted that a production version of this concept, which was called BUDD-e, could come to market in 2019. A second concept, this time called I.D. Buzz, premiered at the Detroit auto show one year later. The name was possibly a play on ‘bus’. This design study looked like a modern take on the 1960s and 1970s Bulli and could seat up to eight people.
According to Volkswagen, the Buzz used an extended MEB-XL platform. A van variant, the I.D. Buzz Cargo, was then revealed at the Hannover IAA commercial vehicles show in September 2018. VW hinted that such a model might have a production future, supplementing its Transporter range.
It’s now known that the ID. Bus will come to market in 2022, built in Hanover by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. VW confirmed the timing and the production plant in August 2017, if not the official model name. This means that both passenger microbus and cargo variants will be available, some with Level 3 autonomy. A version with Level 4 would not be launched until 2025, Alex Hitzinger, CEO of Volkswagen Autonomy, stated earlier this month at a media event coinciding with CES.
Reports for many other manufacturers’ future models are grouped in the OEM product strategy summaries section of just-auto.com.
Future product program intelligence
More detail on past, current and forthcoming models can be found in PLDB, the future vehicles database. That includes the Volkswagen and Jetta brand cars which were not discussed in the above report.
This was the first feature in a series examining the current and future models of Volkswagen AG’s passenger vehicle brands. The next one will look at VW SUVs, crossovers, MPVs and pick-ups.
