Summary
- Volkswagen aims to unify styling of ICE and EV models for consistency.
- Transition to EVs will include offering iconic models with ICE or electric options.
- Focus on maintaining both ID brand for EVs and strong nameplates like Golf and GTI.
Volkswagen’s apparently looking to unify its overall styling language, particularly between its electric and internal combustion models, to keep them from looking too different from one another. AutoCarUK recently learned the news after speaking with Volkswagen’s newest sales and marketing head honcho, Martin Sander, at the Paris Auto Show.
As automakers continue to restructure and reorganize their electric vehicle initiatives, the newest trend is offering buyers the choice of both electric and internal combustion propulsion, in addition to gas-electric hybrid options, rather than forcing buyers to go all-electric. Volkswagen appears to be joining this trend as the company now wants to make its ICE and EV models look similar to each other, versus the current lineup split between its standard ICE models and the company’s range of ID electric models.
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Speaking with Martin Sander, Volkswagen isn’t too gung-ho about abandoning the internal combustion market as the company still sees the demand is there. But right now, the company’s is currently adapting to the market conditions, which are clearly showing that internal combustion remains favorable among buyers as opposed to electric vehicles. However, EVs are still a part of Volkswagen’s future and this transition period continues to be a big gray area in terms of figuring out and charting a path forward.
In the latest development, Volkswagen will seek to make its future EV models look more like some of its ICE-powered models, all in hopes to make the transition to EVs a little easier by offering buyers the same, iconic models that everyone loves and has come to appreciate, but with the option of either ICE power or electric power.
With the company’s investment over the past few years in EV architecture, Volkswagen’s confident that they laid the groundwork necessary for EV offerings, but now, it’s a matter of optimizing that groundwork and making the best of it from a sales and marketing standpoint.
“I think it’s really important that we have a clear Volkswagen design language,” Sander told AutoCar, when asked if Volkswagen’s styling will “converge” in the future. “Going forward for the next launches, you will see much more clarity in the way Volkswagen vehicles are designed.”
One example where this apparently worked well for VW was the old Golf hatchback and its electric version, which didn’t look all that dissimilar from the regular gas/diesel-powered Golf model. In the future, Volkswagen looks to do the same with its oncoming models while still retaining the “ID” name and sub-brand. Thus, there’s a possibility that a new Golf could retain the Golf name for the ICE versions, while a supplemental “ID Golf” could follow for the EV variant.
“We want to build ID as the leading brand for electric vehicles,” Sander continued in his interview, while explaining that VW doesn’t want to give up on the ID brand, calling it a “strong” point for the brand. But at the same time, he doesn’t want VW to abandon some of its equally strong and very identifiable nameplates, such as the Golf and GTI badges.
Source: AutoCarUK
