VW Golf 8: The Gulf is threatened with extinction

It was an almost unheard-of incident for VW: Germany's most important auto show, the IAA, is in full swing; at Volkswagen, Germany's most important automaker, is the new Golf, so to speak, the Germany car in the starting blocks; but Volkswagen does not show it at the car show in Frankfurt. Instead of the bestseller, the Wolfsburg present the electrical ID3 there. The new Golf is only now being presented to the public in Wolfsburg. Weeks later.

This premiere shows how VW is currently setting the priorities: The Golf is 45 years with a total production of 35 million vehicles VW's best-selling car. Nevertheless, the company sees its future clearly in the ID3, which development director Frank Welch has already described as the Golf of a new generation in his first test drives in South Africa. However, the true golf looks like this already at the premiere like a veteran on call.

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This impression is exacerbated by the - well, rather - evolutionary design. Clear: In Wolfsburg it says in the most beautiful prospectus-Sprech, the edges were again a bit sharper and the lines have become even more precise. But because golf has to satisfy as many customers as possible and, as before, it uses the basically unchanged MQB architecture, its format and format hardly change.

Brand new scrap metal?

"With the new edition of the Golf and the parallel launch of the ID3, Volkswagen is carrying out a difficult balancing act between the old and the new automotive world," says Stefan Bratzel from the Center of Automotive Management in Bergisch Gladbach. Should a new age at Volkswagen be initiated with the ID3, the long-running Golf in this form could even go into its final lap. Although admitted Bratzel that the rapid triumph of electromobility is by no means certain. "Should this succeed, however, the new Golf could soon be considered an old iron," says the professor.

Brand new and already scrap metal? Chief Development Officer Welsch, of course, can not accept that: "The Golf is as modern in its own way as the ID3," he defends his creation and sees in Generation Eight a greater leap than most of its predecessors. He also does not want to recognize competition between the two models. "The Golf was not disconnected from the ID3, but was pulled along, one would have been impossible without the other." For reasons of cost, the engineers had to keep the individual cars close to each other, says Welsch. "Even if you do not look at them, Golf and ID3 have a surprising number of identical parts and the same technologies apart from design and drive."

Particularly big is the developmental leap for the Golf in electronics:

• There is a completely new operating system with digital instruments as standard, with a large touchscreen, a full-fledged head-up display, with more sensor panels as switches and a voice control reminiscent of Apple's Siri.
• There are more assistance systems that have greater powers. Thus, the TravelAssist takes over the steering and gas now give up to 210 km / h and makes the driver to the extras, who only occasionally put his hands on the steering wheel.
• And there is a hitherto unprecedented networking. The Golf is permanently online, can be opened by mobile phone and integrates smartphones as well as Amazon Alexa. He also uses for the first time the so-called Car2X technology and connects to its immediate environment. For example, leading-edge cars use this technology to become sensors and alert drivers, for example, of behind-the-scenes vehicles at an early stage.

Retreading also with the engines

And VW has once again invested a lot in the engines to make the burners fit for the future. When the eight new drive variants are introduced in the model series, the power range of 90 to 300 hp will be enough, the efficiency jump is up to 17 percent compared to the previous drives.

• In the gasoline, the Lower Saxony have the 90 or 110 hp three-cylinder at the base and the 130 hp version of the 1.5 -liter four-cylinder converted to the so-called Miller cycle combustion method, which is touted as particularly economical and clean.
• In the diesels - initially a 2.0-liter with 115 and 150 hp - VW introduces the so-called Twin-Dosing for exhaust aftertreatment and injects two AdBlue into the exhaust. So the stock oxide emissions compared to the predecessor are allegedly reduced by 80 percent.
• As the only German manufacturer VW continues to rely on natural gas for CO2 reduction and therefore offers the Golf again with a TGI engine that burns gasoline or gas.
• The Niedersachsen roll out the hybrid drive wide. As the first VW model ever, there will be the Golf with five electrified drives. Three petrol engines rely on an electric starter generator with 48-volt technology, which does not allow electric propulsion, but in everyday life by longer sailing phases and more recuperation but save up to ten percent fuel. Who really wants to drive electrically, can choose between two plug-in hybrids: both have a 13 kWh battery and differ only in system performance: sometimes there are 204 and sometimes 245 hp. What does not exist, on the other hand, is a pure electric golf. If you only want to drive with electricity, you have to wait a few weeks and then buy an ID3.

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The Golf is expected to go on sale in December and will cost around € 20,000 in the basic package. Automotive economist Ferdinand Dudenhöffer sees the success story of the Gulf despite all efforts in Wolfsburg come to an end. "First, he is not an SUV and secondly, the ID3 is in the race shortly after him as his charming electric successor."

In the near future, the Gulf will be bothered by the SUV boom. After that, the ID3 will increasingly deduct the customers. "This will make the new Golf the last Golf to be a bestseller in the history," predicts Dudenhöffer, who teaches at the University of Duisburg-Essen. "It is a paradoxical development: in the future, it will be the SUV preferences and climate change that will knock the Gulf off the throne.