staff@slashgear.com (Mark Cowley)
2024-04-26 10:30:26
www.slashgear.com
Gas-powered variants of the Mk7 Golf were largely iterative improvements over their predecessors: Reduced weight, added safety tech, and updated styling were the headline changes. The Golf continued to sell well across Europe, its main market, and so there was no need for a radical overhaul. A range of gasoline and diesel variants were offered, although the diesel models became significantly less popular in the wake of Volkswagen’s infamous Dieselgate scandal.
The resulting fines from the scandal forced Volkswagen to invest in greener technologies, but the automaker was already moving ahead with its plans for zero-emissions versions of the Golf before the scandal emerged. The first production electric Golf, the e-Golf, was launched in 2014, and continued to be built until the end of Mk7 production in 2020. In total, more than 145,000 examples of the car were sold, mainly in Germany and other EV-friendly countries such as Norway. The ID.3 later replaced the e-Golf as VW’s compact EV, with several more models added to the electric ID range over the following years.