Volkswagen has put the electric Golf on hold for now as it faces growing pressure to cut costs.
Volkswagen is suspending Golf EV development for now
“We cannot afford to lose any time and must act quickly and decisively,” Volkswagen Group CFO and COO Arno Antlitz warned after the company reported its largest quarterly loss since the “Dieselgate” scandal in 2015 on Thursday.
VW Group’s operating loss swelled to €5.9 billion ($6.5 billion) in the third quarter because of a write-down of its Porsche stake, weak sales in China, and lower profit margins on electric vehicles.
As part of its latest cost-control efforts, Volkswagen is pausing development of the all-electric Golf at its Wolfsburg plant in Germany.
“We simply can’t afford this work right now,” VW brand CEO Thomas Schäfer said in an internal memo Reuters reviewed on Friday. The Wolfsburg plant, or the “heart of the VW brand,” is about €300 million ($334.5 million) short of its cost-cutting targets, the memo said.
Schäfer said the “decision was really not an easy one for us,” knowing what the Golf means to Wolfsburg.
The decision comes after Volkswagen’s Supervisory Board approved its restructuring strategy, “Future Plan 2030,” last month, which includes reducing its global workforce by 100,000, trimming its lineup, and closing several plants in Germany.
Volkswagen initially planned to launch the Golf EV in 2028, but Schäfer confirmed earlier this year that the electric hatch will be delayed until closer to 2030.
Schäfer suggested the delay was because the SSP (Scalable Systems Platform), developed through its partnership with Rivian, was taking longer than expected.
The electric Golf, which is expected to arrive as the ID. Golf, will be one of the first vehicles based on the new platform.
While development is on hold, VW’s works council said the pause will not delay the Golf EV’s launch, promising to make up for lost time. It’s still expected to launch in 2030.
Volkswagen will begin building the electric Golf in Wolfsburg closer to the end of the decade, while production of the gas-powered model will move to Mexico in 2027.
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