The Once-Dominant Volkswagen Golf Is Quietly Fading

Since the first Golf rolled off the assembly line in late March 1974, Volkswagen has built more than 37 million units. It’s by far the company’s most popular car ever, comfortably surpassing the Beetle (21.5 million) and the Polo (20 million). But the once-dominant Golf may be past its prime. Production has dropped sharply in recent years, according to a presentation by the works council at the Wolfsburg site.

Reuters saw the internal document and reports that VW built more than one million Golf hatchbacks and wagons globally in 2015, but only a little over 300,000 units last year. For 2025, the German automaker projects it will assemble just 250,000 vehicles. In just a decade, output has plummeted by 75%. Works council chief Daniela Cavallo told the news agency it’s only going to get worse: “The trend is an unstoppable decline.”

Photo by: Volkswagen

Why is the Golf struggling? A few reasons come to mind. Early software issues with the eighth-generation model likely hurt demand. VW has also faced criticism for a noticeable drop in interior quality compared to its excellent Mk7 predecessor. The removal of most physical controls probably didn’t help, either. People are also not fans of the touch slider below the screen, and having capacitive touch buttons on high-end versions of the pre-facelift model might’ve also alienated buyers.

But let’s not forget we’re living in the SUV age. The T-Roc, essentially a Golf crossover, is nearly as popular as its hatchback counterpart in Europe. Sales figures from Dataforce show VW sold 216,549 Golfs in Europe last year, just 13,000 more than T-Rocs. To some extent, the crossover may be cannibalizing sales of the hatchback and wagon. Oh, and there’s also a T-Roc Convertible, which proved to be more popular than the Miata last year in Europe.

VW plans to move production of the combustion-engine Golf from Wolfsburg to Puebla, Mexico, starting in 2027. When that happens, Cavallo isn’t ruling out switching to a four-day work week at the German plant, where the Tiguan is built alongside the aging Touran minivan. The Golf will return to Wolfsburg eventually, with the ninth-generation, electric-only model on a dedicated platform, arriving by the end of the decade. An electric T-Roc will also be made there.

Meanwhile, cost-cutting is in full swing. VW aims to eliminate 35,000 jobs in Germany by the end of the decade. More than 20,000 workers have already contractually agreed to leave within the next five years, Reuters reports. Between now and 2030, the company plans to reduce annual output in Germany by 700,000 vehicles, a significant portion of which will come from relocating Golf production to Mexico.

It’s worth noting that the Golf isn’t built exclusively in Wolfsburg. VW also manufactures the car in Malaysia and China. While an electric version is on the horizon, the current internal combustion model could continue until 2035, according to VW’s Head of Technical Development, Kai Grünitz.