It’s been just over one year since Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen Group’s chief finance officer, told employees the company had “a year, maybe two years, to turn things around” following a collapse in sales. Since then, things haven’t really changed. The German conglomerate sold 4.36 million vehicles in the first half of 2025—just 0.5 percent more than the same period last year, and a far cry from the 5.36 million cars it was selling during that same period before the pandemic upended the industry.
VW’s last-minute union deal last year prevented any factories from closing, and restructured the company’s future plans for its all-important Golf hatchback. Under this new plan, production of the current Golf will move to Mexico, while the original plant in Wolfsburg, Germany will be converted to build the next-generation Golf, an all-electric car. The move is expected to save the company around $4.7 billion a year.
Sounds like a plan, right? Well, it seems Volkswagen’s tightening finances are finally starting to catch up to it, and it’s causing delays. From Bloomberg:
The plan to retool VW’s Wolfsburg factory for next-generation electric vehicles has stalled due to budget constraints, pushing back the launch of the electric Golf by around nine months, the people said, asking to remain anonymous discussing confidential information.
Plans to move production of the existing combustion-engine Golf to Mexico have been delayed as a result, they added. The timing of the launch of the electric version of the T-Roc has also been affected, one of the people said.
VW declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg. I’ve reached out myself to see if the company can share any more info, but haven’t heard back yet.
The electric Golf was supposed to arrive sometime in 2029 to combat Chinese EVs in Europe, which have quickly become a dominant force in the region thanks to their lower costs. Losing another nine months isn’t the end of the world, but it’s also nine months where companies like BYD and NIO can further expand their market share.
Drama at the Wolfsburg plant doesn’t stop at its balance sheet, according to Bloomberg:
The delayed factory revamp comes as tensions run high among factory workers in Wolfsburg, where technical errors and equipment failures are bringing production lines to a standstill, the people said. It’s a blow for staff who had been brought in for night and weekend shifts to meet customer demand. Output could fall by as many as thousands of units a week for the rest of the year, one of the people said.
Bloomberg reports that Volkswagen is mapping out a spending plan for the next four years, with one of its sources saying some of that cash could be allocated to fixing the above problem points. Whether VW can keep up with all of these costs without a return to form for its sales numbers is unclear.
The normal Golf hasn’t been sold in America since 2021, but the GTI and the Golf R are still offered here. VW hasn’t said whether that’ll still be the case once the GTI turns into an EV, though I don’t think the company would turn its back on the enthusiast market like that (at least, I hope it doesn’t). Guess we’ll see!
Aside: which VW vehicles built in Wolfsburg have such market demand that require double- and weekend shifts? Bring on the Ueberstunden.
They wanted to jump in feet first to full electric everything to show they were atoning for their sins. I’m sure they could have come up with a better negotiation with the government where they stepped up their advancements to electric by introducing some hybrid, plug-ins, range extended vehicles, etc
No way! Impossible. All the commenters told me I was stupid and they had billions in the bank when I said they were cooked.
I think VW, and many other car makers are now getting psyched out by their competition. Sort of like how a competent athlete can get an opponent in their head and totally lose their game. All of these crazy moonshots and techodoodads really point to VW losing their game. “The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming!” If you hadn’t left them fertile ground to farm, they probably would have gone elsewhere, or at least not found it so easy.
I agree. As much as everyone wants to hate on China, our automakers (and law makers/chicken tax) made it too easy for them to pick up the slack.
For instance I love my Toyota’s, but Where’s the maverick competition? It’s been years. Between decreasing quality and increasing prices, lots of these automakers deserve to fail.
4 years might be enough time for the Chinese oems to set up local factories in Europe definitely enough time to get contract factories producing something. China fast is something the western automakers need to be worried about. 5 year cycles are bad enough now over 7 year for a Bev that the tech can change significantly for just isn’t practical. I can’t see the eu propping up both vw and stalantis. Though I guess stranger things have happened. The Chinese might get themselves a lot of new brands from both portfolios and some factories along with them.
This is not a good move for VW, but an even worse move for the e-Golf happened about a month ago. VW finally “released” their NACS adapter, but excluded the original e-Golf from compatibility. Once they showed no interest in keeping my 2019 (with CCS) current, I lost all interest in replacing it with another VW. Being locked out of the NACS network is a huge negative, as we all know CCS stations will stop being built, and are already terrible at getting repaired.
I didn’t know this. Are there no third-party adapters to let e-Golfs use new chargers, or is it not simply a matter of the physical connection?
To use Tesla’s NACS network there is a software handshake that tells the charger what kind of car you have/charging capabilities. Because VW made an adapter without including the e-Golf, it is effectively blacklisted. You can get a simple CCS/J1772 to NACS, but would be limited to nacs wall chargers at 110 or 220v.
https://parts.vw.com/p/Volkswagen__/NACS-to-CCS-DC-Adapter/147936830/11A054411.html
Near the bottom it specifies: Not for e-Golf
Thanks for edumacating me. 🙂
I really lament the loss of the regular Golf here in the US. If you’re looking for a compact commuter hatch, the GTI is tough to justify with its higher price, giant rims/low profile tires and frustrating tech. And there is very little else out there to choose from.
We were in Canada for the last two weeks and I kept getting excited about all of the honest to got cars they still have.
GTI S has 18s and is low 30s pricing which isn’t horrible nowadays.
17″ wheels clear Emmm Kay Eight Golfs.
I put 19″s away after sidewall blew up and then wheel bent
Well, there goes the Golf of Mexico.
Unpopular opinion: Unions will choke their own industries to death, if they don’t realize these are new times.
So what else do you think workers should do to try and retain rights? Unions are pretty much the only tool one has to keep shitty companies in check. Its either Unions or corporate abuse. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing.
Do you honestly think you can reverse a century of conservative anti-union brainwashing with reason? At this point I’m sure they’d volunteer to go beat up some union members across town if their bosses asked, rather than vote to unionize themselves to try to have some semblance of rights.
In their feeble minds serfdom is justified.
Dismissing people as “feeble-minded serfs” isn’t just offensive, it’s counterproductive. Workers who are hesitant about unions aren’t brainwashed drones, they’re people weighing risk, job security, and personal experience. Many have seen unions succeed, but many have also seen them fail, become corrupt, or seem out of touch with their realities.
If the goal is to expand worker rights, then respect and persuasion will go further than insults. Change happens when people feel heard, not when they’re mocked. Believing that every skeptical worker is a victim of “a century of brainwashing” ignores the complexity of their lived experience and oversimplifies a very real challenge.
The path forward isn’t to caricature them, it’s to build trust, prove the value of solidarity, and demonstrate that standing together really does protect their interests better than going it alone.
Doesn’t matter with this guy. He never replied. All you have to do with people like this is ask a question then they shut up. I agree that it is not constructive calling them that but that is literally what the corporations want.
If you keep score of recent current events, it’s make or break time for the middle class in this country. If I have to repeatedly point out that people are stupid, have been played, and continue to vote in a manner that makes their lives worse, so be it. Especially if they intend to double down out of sheer spite or not wanted to be shown to be wrong.
A few years back I migth’ve agreed with you and your plea for civil discourse, but unfortunately that approach has failed, hard.
If you don’t realize it, then you might be trying to hide from reality.
Two things can be true: Unions can be beneficial to workers *in general* and also make decisions that are not in their long-term best interests.
My point is: maybe the current rights are unsustainable long term
If they give you 1 cow, I bet you’d throw a BBQ instead of producing milk.
“…if they don’t realize these are new times.”
Are these the new times of exploitation for the benefit of a dozen billionaires while you get the privilege of working for … well, food is awfully expensive, you don’t need that either.
He wants to get paid in company scrip.
The VW company store has Currywurst!
2029 was already waaay too late to compete with the wave of Chinese market EVs in Europe and elsewhere. They can’t truly believe that a further delay is tenable…
It’s almost like there are consequences for many years of building horribly unreliable cars with infuriating interfaces!
The horrible capacitive touch buttons on the steering wheel killed the gti for a lot of folks besides me. They dropped the ball so hard on that.
Those pulled it off the list for me when I went car shopping last year. One of my friends is a VW diehard (but she also replaces her cars around 100k miles) and kept trying to push a Golf and I will not own a car that aggravates me any time I have to use a major feature. Give me regular buttons or I’m looking elsewhere. My current car has a screen but it’s not even a touchscreen.
Yeah I had a 2016 accord with a touch slider instead of a wheel for volume. I could deal with it just because the buttons on the wheel were actual buttons and I used those most of the time. The golf was just pure aggravation. I could not handle that.
How long did you own a GTI with the capacitive system?
I test drove one. I didn’t buy it. I hated the buttons.
I have a ’25 Golf R with the capacitative touch buttons. It’s not that bad. It’s not ideal, but it’s not horrible. Ditto the rest of the interior.
I do think that the Mk. 7.5 era (which is ’18-’20 for the Golf family) was the zenith of practical car interiors, and think VW should go back to that. That they are so steadfastly refusing to do so speaks to how much they feel like they need to squeeze the cost out of their products to protect margin; I’m sure the 7 interior was a lot pricier to produce.
I liked the rest of the car enough to overlook those concerns, but I’m not going to pretend the 8 (or even 8.5) is better than the 7.
I disliked it enough to go with an integra over the golf. I had enough of touch buttons with the touch slider on my accord.
I find them horrible and a total deal-breaker. I test drove one and hated them so much it was an immediate no from me. I hear the same thing about the 7.5 frequently. There weren’t any for sale here that met my budget/mileage requirements or I’d have at least looked at one.
Instead I got an AWD M3TH and am incredibly happy with it. Probably would have loved a Golf with actual buttons just as much.
Exactly… their reliability is their problem. I was going to post this if no one else did.
Good.
They should’ve just kept advancing the egolf, the Chinese variant got a 40kwh battery, that’d have been plenty and just keep cranking gas and electric out on the same line.
I don’t understand the need to reinvent the wheel on a lot of these evs, yes it’s more efficient to build from the ground up but also costlier. Especially when considering a lower cost ev.
Battery tech and charging infrastructure has come far enough that sharing a platform for gas and ice can work ok, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good or good nuff. The main strengths of the Golf are handling and efficiency, the egolf still had both, just needed a little more battery, and better charging/battery cooling. But I guess they need to spend billions to make an affordable car, like Ford with its next ev truck.
Precisely. The technology change is so rapid that no matter what you do (unless you do nothing) the thing you make will need to be reinvented shortly. So, stop spending a lot of time inventing and get to building cars people actually want. The ultimate Irony here is the air-cooled VW platform is literally what they should be doing but in EV Form, and they can’t/won’t do it. Cheap, simple, good enoug, but attractive and interesting vehicles sharing a platform. Instead we’ve got a $60K minivan, anonymous looking SUVs in a sea of anonymous SUVs, no more manual transmission in GTI, and no sporty EV in sight…
When VW goes under, I just hope the world can fend of China from purchasing it, but I am not hopeful….
Frankly, you’re both wrong. To build a competitive EV, the platform must be reinvented. The Chinese EVs that everyone are worried about are on ground-up platforms. Even a combo platform (potential for ICE and EV), which tend to underperform, are going to be ground-up designed for that. Whenever an industry needs to do a ground-up design, it’s going to involve some reinvention of the wheel, since manufacturing lines are hyper optimized for a narrow product design
Who said combo platform? No one said combo platform. We said build a decent platform at a decent price. Don’t overcomplicate things with trying to be Tesla or Chinese techno-filled machine. Build a car, price it right, after-all they are named Volkswagen.
No body gives a fuck if it’s high tech or or the platform is great and new. Price wins. Why do you think Tesla keeps dropping the price and not building new platforms?
And you’re also ignoring the fact they DID do that, and have failed miserably. Lots of makers have. So don’t feed us the corporate BS that you must reinvent something. Do you work in marketing?
“Who said combo platform? No one said combo platform. ”
YOU just said combo platform!!!
Ha Ha!!!
If you aren’t building a dedicated EV platform, then it’s a combo platform. If it’s a dedicated EV platform, then it requires reinventing the wheel, because it’s a different manufacturing process. That was the entire point of my comment
> though I don’t think the company would turn its back on the enthusiast market like that (at least, I hope it doesn’t).
And, yet, they did. No 6MT on any Golf (R or GTai), and regular jabs about Harlequin teases are two I can think of right now.
I blame the ID series.
Design Technophilic cars with shit follow-through at a higher price point when the brand is built around “Peoples’ Cars” that are simple and reliable, then act surprised when people don’t want to buy them.
Frankly if the e-Golf was still being sold in the US today I might have gotten one instead of my Leaf. IMHO modern Golfs are a nice combination of classy without being flashy.
Yeah, the original e-Golf was not a bad car, they literally just needed a modern size battery in it and it would have been great.
I loved my 2019 e-Golf, aside from the 12v battery problems (could have been fixed with software) it was a great car.
There was a company that showed what could be done in the same battery space that would have almost doubled the range and improved charging. The platform still had life in it, and VW dropped it.
Even now there’s a company selling CATL batteries for the e-Golf that adds 150km of range
Indeed. They were so concerned about a near term market tsunami (which never happened), that they went all in on a half baked product. That’s a recipe for disaster. I think Ford has done reasonably well: give one or two products a genuine effort, but not at the cost of current product lines and their future, learn from those releases, and come back swinging. Between ID and Cariad, VW has blown tens of billions
Maybe they should use some of that money they saved from cheating their emissions testing for all those years!
Or was all that money spent on bonuses for their top executives?
VW, get fucked.
Or it could be the the $33 Billion in fines for doing that cheating.
Not enough. And all the executives involved should be rotting in a prison cell.
At least four of them did, some in the USA and some in Germany, although not for long enough and I think they are all out now.
What they need (and hopefully have had as this was happening in 2017) is a clean sweep and a change of mindset where they no longer think that type of behavior is appropriate.
I’ve worked for billion dollar companies with 100k employees – you don’t change the attitude of these companies by imprisoning a couple of people. The entire C suite should have been throw in prison for a long, long time.
And to put that fine into perspective, Toyota made more than that as profit in just one year. So decades of their emissions and they got a slap on the wrist with that small fine. “Small” in reference to the crime size of the company and industry.
VW wants to get that plant online. I can’t see them taking out loans to shore up their finances. Issuing bonds would be the best way to go. If there is something preventing a bond issue (I’m more familiar with US corporate law, and not German), they could possibly whip out that dirty ‘D’ word. Dilution. Issue more shares – but when that is done, it dilutes the ownership stake of anyone else already holding VAG stock.
I’ll just say it as plain as I can. VW can’t afford not to build the new Golf.
While not a big seller in the USA, this is their most important, and highest volume vehicle in the world. They’ve moved over 35 million examples since their introduction.
I agree that it is very important, but it has slipped from being their top seller. According to VW’s 2024 annual report, looking at global sales (top of page 104) it’s in 5th place behind the Tiguan, Passat, Polo and Jetta.
Perhaps that’s part of their problem though … the Polo has become big enough for many people and is probably cannibalizing Golf sales. I just drove a Mk6 Polo on vacation in Norway and it was great – if they’d slapped a Golf badge on it I might have thought “wow, the Golf is back to being nice and compact again”, not “this thing is too small”.
They need to rename it the “Golf of America” and perhaps the orange one will let it bypass tariffs.
fantastic
It’s probably way bigger than a Mk 1 Golf was.
Mk1 Golf (US) was 155.3″ L x 64.2″ W x 54.9″ H
Mk6 Polo is 159.8″ L x 68.9″ W x 57.5″ H
Mk8 Golf is 168.7″ L x 70.4″ W x 57.3″ H
Mk6 Polo is indeed larger than the US (larger than world) Mk1 Golf
The Mk5 Polo was the first Polo to be larger than the US Mk1 Golf
It’s cool they’ve sold 35 million over the last 50 years or however long it’s been, but the Golf’s time has come. People simply aren’t buying cars like it in the numbers they were before, and IMO it’s silly for them to be producing a Golf and a Polo at the same time. One of them needs to go, and since the Golf is currently being outsold by the Polo, I think it’s clear which one it is.
There are global markets where both the Polo and Golf sell in big numbers. For some, the Polo is the only affordable car and the golf is the aspirational model. They both have their place in the lineup.
Waw, this EV golf is turning into a wave of bad luck.