2029 VW Golf preview.

VW just released a teaser image for the next-generation Golf. The new model will arrive as a 2029 model year, with the official launch expected in 2028. For the first time in the model’s long history, the Golf will be available as both a fully electric vehicle and a traditional gasoline-powered car, reflecting the industry’s slow but steady transition toward electrification.

From the teaser image, we can already see that the next VW Golf will look sleeker and more aerodynamic than the current model. The hood appears noticeably shorter, and the overall proportions hint at EV-inspired packaging. Which is not surprising, since electric platforms typically allow designers more flexibility with cabin space and front-end design.

Despite the obvious shift toward electrification, the next Golf will continue to be built at Volkswagen’s historic Wolfsburg plant in Germany, at least for cars sold in Europe. That decision underlines how central the Golf remains to Volkswagen’s identity.

Future VW EVs will carry familiar names with “Electric” added, rather than standing apart as a separate family. BMW is doing something similar, sticking with the model names (in their case, numbers) everyone already knows and simply adding an “i” to denote electric versions.

In many ways, this is a pragmatic reset. The idea of a clean break between combustion and electric cars sounded good on paper, but reality proved more complicated. EV adoption has been more uneven than expected, and customers still value familiarity, especially in core segments like the Golf, which remains hugely popular across Europe.

For Volkswagen, keeping the Golf name alive through the EV transition also helps maintain brand continuity in a rapidly changing market. The Golf has been one of Europe’s best-selling cars for decades, and abandoning that name for a new electric sub-brand could have risked losing the model’s enormous recognition and loyalty.

This strategy will probably work for a while. Eventually, though, if EVs do replace all new models, these extra letters—“i,” “ID,” or “Electric”—will become redundant. At that point, they’ll quietly disappear. Electric will no longer need explaining, and the cars will simply go back to being what they always were: Golf, 3 Series, C-Class. No prefixes, no suffixes, just names.