The beloved VW Golf hatchback is falling out of favor. Volkswagen is moving Golf production to Mexico as demand for the current gas-powered model sinks. The upcoming EV version will replace it in VW’s German production alongside a new electric SUV.
Since the first Golf rolled off the assembly line in late March 1974, Volkswagen has built more than 37 million units. It’s by far the company’s most popular car ever, comfortably surpassing the Beetle (21.5 million) and the Polo (20 million).
But the once-dominant Golf is past its prime. Production has dropped sharply in recent years, according to a presentation by the works council at the Wolfsburg site. News agency Reuters reviewed the internal document and reported that VW built more than one million Golf hatchbacks and wagons globally in 2015, but only slightly over 300,000 units last year.
For 2025, the German automaker projects it will assemble just 250,000 vehicles. In just a decade, output has plummeted by 75%. Works council chief Daniela Cavallo told the news agency it’s only going to get worse: “The trend is an unstoppable decline.”
No SUV
Why is the Golf struggling? A few reasons come to mind. There were early software issues with the eighth-generation model. VW has also faced criticism for a noticeable drop in interior quality compared to its excellent Mark 7 predecessor. The removal of most physical controls probably didn’t help, either.
But the most obvious reason is that we’re living in an SUV era now. The Volkswagen T-Roc, essentially a Golf crossover, is nearly as popular as its hatchback counterpart in Europe. Sales figures from Dataforce show VW sold 216,549 Golfs in Europe last year, just 13,000 more than T-Rocs.
Current Golf must go
Volkswagen is undergoing a significant restructuring at its Wolfsburg plant in Germany, where the majority of Golf production is based. However, that will soon change. Production of the current ICE Golf will be relocated to Mexico from 2027, while the EV version will replace it in Wolfsburg, alongside an electric successor to… the T-Roc SUV.
During the transition, the plant could shift to a four-day work week. “From 2027 onwards, a temporary four-day week is not an unreasonable scenario,” Cavallo told plant workers on Wednesday. Volkswagen’s HR head, Gunnar Kilian, added that the company plans to cut 35,000 jobs in Germany by the end of the decade. Over 20,000 have agreed to end their contracts early.
It’s worth noting that the Golf isn’t built exclusively in Wolfsburg. VW also manufactures the car in Malaysia and China. While an electric version is on the horizon, the current internal combustion model could continue until 2035, according to VW’s Head of Technical Development, Kai Grünitz.
Electric Golf
Following the production version of the ID.EVERY1, Volkswagen’s entry-level EV, the electric Golf will be the company’s second electric vehicle partly based on Rivian’s electrical architecture and software stack. Volkswagen’s tech boss, Kai Grunitz, confirmed earlier this year that “The ID.1 will be the very first vehicle with that architecture and will be the frontrunner on our side for the ID Golf.”
According to the English car magazine Autocar, the electric Golf will also be one of the first vehicles built on VW’s new but delayed SSP platform. The 800V architecture promises to improve charging times and efficiency significantly. Volkswagen is expected to launch the EV variant, the ‘ID.Golf’, in 2028. It will be built at VW’s Wolfsburg plant alongside the electric T-Roc successor.
