The current Volkswagen Golf 8 could become the longest-surviving Golf in the brand's model history due to new considerations in Wolfsburg.
The Golf 8 can become a car that is on the road for a full 16 years. It has already been here for 5 years. But the management in Wolfsburg is ready for more.
Specifically, the bosses are considering letting the current Volkswagen Golf continue in the model program for another 11 years. Even though an electric Golf is apparently planned for a launch around 2030.
But in an interview for the Dutch version of Top Gear, Kai Grünitz, head of Volkswagen's technical department, says that they are considering letting the Golf 8 run further than at least 2035.
Funnily enough, it is the same year that the EU intends to ban all new cars with internal combustion engines that cannot run on synthetic fuel.
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By then, the Volkswagen Golf 8 will be a really old car. Because the car does not stand on its own platform. Instead, it is a further developed Golf 7 on the MQB platform, a technique that was launched way back in 2012.
However, it is nothing new that Volkswagen extends the life of old platforms. Especially not when it comes to the Gulf.
Golf Mk. 5, which was launched in 2003, laid the platform for the successor Golf 6. A car that only went out of production nine years later. Almost then. For the Golf 6, it was in production until 2016.
However, there is nothing that beats the Volkswagen Type 1 in the car brand's history. With little break, the car was in production from 1938 to 2003, when the last car left the assembly line in Mexico.
Back in Wolfsburg, Grünitz regards the MQB platform on which the Golf 8 is built as 'perfection'. Even if the Germans admit that they had major problems especially with the car's software when it came on the market.
In any case, Kai Grünitz sees no reason to develop a completely new petrol/diesel-powered platform for another Golf. Grünitz also points out that the Golf may well be retired by 2035. However, it is not necessarily about emissions requirements.
Instead, it may turn out that the EU's rules on e.g. cyber security in new cars may become the car's finale. The demands have already caused Porsche to drop several models. Read more about it here .
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