Confirmed: New VW Golf GTI will be electric – and it’s a “monster”

The first all-electric Volkswagen Golf GTI is under development – and VW CEO Thomas Schäfer promises “it’ll be a monster car”.

VW will keep updating the current Golf until the end of the decade, at which point a pure electric version will come into play, based on the VW Group’s all-new SSP architecture. And with zero margin for error on such an iconic halo car, conceptual work is well and truly underway to electrify the original GTI. 

“At the end of the decade we will bring an electric Golf [GTI], and that will be a monster car,” said Schäfer. “I'm very happy with the progress. It's cool. You can make it exciting, it has to be exciting, it has to be authentic. If we bring a GTI, it has to be a [true] GTI.”

FWD Golf GTI and AWD Golf R

The headline news is that the GTI will be front-wheel drive, despite its closest electric sibling – the ID.3 GTX – having a 322bhp motor driving the rear wheels. That’s around 80bhp more than today’s 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol GTI, but it’s possible that the e-GTI will match its stepchange in power, because of an electric motor’s ability to precisely control the amount of torque to each front wheel. 

The first electric Golf R – also in the plan according to Schäfer – will have the headroom to come with another power leap, because it sticks to the R concept of sending power to all four wheels.

The ID.2 GTI – already shown in concept form – will set the benchmark for the new hot Golf, Schäfer said. 

“We'll bring through a whole group of GTI, starting with the ID.2 GTI which is the first one coming electrically. When we started this journey, [we told the] the development teams ‘we’ve got to be proud of the GTI of the future’, and the team's taking that on.”

The brand boss has already hot-lapped the upcoming GTI, expected to hit the market in 2026. “We’ve driven a few prototypes on the new set-up, and it's mind blowing. What about the sound? What about the total feel, the handling and so on. It can be done.”

Schäfer wouldn’t be drawn on whether the GTI would emulate Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N with its simulated gearshifts and soundtrack. It also has a drift mode, electronic playthings that are more the natural preserve of the more hardcore Golf R electric. He did namecheck the GTi suspension, which is sure to deliver the trademark blend of ride comfort and eager turn-in. “Can you make an electric Golf exciting? Absolutely,” he promised.

Design details 

Digital work on the new Golf package is shaping up, before the car moves into the physical prototype stage. “We know what the vehicle looks like and [can] sit virtually in the vehicle,” said Schafer. “The dimensions of the platform and the vehicle is clear, though it's not [fine-tuned] to the last design detail. We have many iteration steps to get through.”

The SSP underpinnings will be a gamechanger for Volkswagen Group, with all electric cars from Skoda and VW all the way up to Lamborghini and Bentley tapping into the hardware and software modules it introduces. But iterations will be broken down according to vehicle size and cost.

“It's going to be really scalable,” the boss told Auto Express on the fringe of the FT’s Future of the Car summit. “We have certain sizes according to the vehicle, but still the same modules of the key components that can be used across [SSP], so you have the maximum scaling effect, also in purchasing power.”

And what’s Thomas Schäfer’s favourite GTI of all time? “I think the first one is the most exciting one, because it came out of nowhere and was a total gamechanger. What started as an experiment [became] a trend and stuff like that is legendary.”

The first Golf GTI made 108bhp from its 1.6-litre, naturally aspirated, four-cylinder engine. That’ll be a world apart from the first all-electric, 300bhp-plus Golf GTI arriving some 54 years later – but hopefully its core DNA will be very much intact.

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