Volkswagen talked about the next generation of its Golf hatchback at a board meeting Friday. The eighth generation Golf, or Mk8, is currently in the second stage of development and will start production mid-2019.
Top executives of VW convened at the “Golf 8 Supplier Summit,” meeting with 180 managers from the company’s 120 suppliers to discuss the Golf’s production plans. “Together with the I.D family, the introduction of the upcoming Golf generation will be the most strategically important product launch for the brand,” said Ralf Brandstätter, Volkswagen’s board member for procurement.
The Mk8 will be built at the revamped Wolfsburg production facility, and VW has invested about $2.2 billion into the plant in anticipation of the new Golf family. Wolfsburg already produces more than 2,000 Golfs per day, so this car is in good hands. Volkswagen says the first new Mk8 will roll off the assembly line in 75 weeks, so we’ll have to wait until the summer to get excited.
Karlheinz Hell is overseeing development, and he’s basing the new Golf’s philosophy around connectivity and autonomous driving. “The next Golf will take Volkswagen into the era of fully connected vehicles with extended autonomous driving functions,” Said Hell. He hinted that the Mk8 will stay connected at all times via Wi-Fi and may come with the new Golf R’s digital cockpit as standard.
The Golf may have just gotten a mid-generation refresh for the 2018 model year, but Volkswagen promises that the eighth generation will be even more loaded with technology and performance. There’s no word yet on the sportier GTI variant, but we imagine that Volkswagen won’t let us down with the next iteration of the world’s most beloved hot hatch.