VW boss Thomas Schäfer on an electric Golf, the Polo's survival and more

► VW brand boss speak to CAR
► Next Golf will be electric
► And the Polo will survive longer than we thought

The next all-new Golf will be electric-only and the Polo supermini will soldier on until 2030 at least, Volkswagen brand boss Thomas Schäfer has revealed in a wide-ranging interview.

Schäfer outlined the challenges when planning the future of the humble VW hatchback, given the car market’s rocky transition to electric, tightening EU regulations and customers’ ongoing love affair with SUVs.

Speaking to five UK journalists at the Financial Times’ tenth Future of the Car summit, Schäfer was blunt that the SUV bubble showed no sign of bursting. ‘The trend is still there… If we take [our models] away, chances are customers will go somewhere else. The small SUVs – the T-Roc, T-Cross, Taigo are super in demand. It’s very good business.’

Does that mean the Golf – celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year – is becoming irrelevant and won’t exist in 20 years, asked CAR? ‘The Golf is a phenomenon. It’s a timeless car, ideal for anybody from a student getting into mobility to a CEO driving the GTI.  

‘The Golf has always been very constant but it has always brought technological advancement too. No matter when it is, the next Golf is going to be electric. We’ve just brought in the [Mk8.5] with diverse powertrains but [after that] to bring in a whole new Golf with combustion engines is just not worth it in the total numbers.’

In 2023, VW sold just over 300,000 Golfs, with VW group volumes bolstered in the hatchback segment by 205,000 Skoda Octavias, 100,000 Cupra and SEAT Leons and 246,000 Audi A3s. ‘This is all based on the MQB-A platform which is super cost effective with a number of models from various brands,’ said the VW brand chief. ‘If everybody wants to do it themselves, it kills you on the [scale].’

That’s 851,000 midsize hatchbacks across the group – but VW’s top-selling model, the Tiguan, sold 633,147 units alone in 2023 for comparison. ‘It wasn’t long ago that the company was a strong fanbase of non-SUVs, before 2015! But when we brought them out you could see the success, the Tiguan, T-Roc, super-successful cars, good margins.’

And will this new