Plenty in the pipeline fro
CHOICES: MANY EYES WILL BE ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW GOLF 8 GTI
Exciting times ahead for customers with new app to monitor vehicle info.
Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) has set the bar high for 2020. On the back of a myriad new vehicles locally over the next 10 months or so, VWSA plans to strengthen its position as SA’s new passenger car market leader with further innovations such as newly launched service and maintenance plans and a brand new app.
“We don’t expect to show any growth in 2020 taking the financial climate into consideration and have set ourselves the target of maintaining our 2019 market share,” says Martina Biene, head of the Volkswagen brand in South Africa.
“This year, 2020, will see the introduction of the Golf 8 which will feature level two autonomous driving systems known as partial autonomation. The global drive to autonomous driving is a fastpaced one and Tesla has already announced it will feature level three on it vehicles by 2021/22.
“We are also very excited with the arrival of our We Connect Go app this year. We understand that the high costs of data in South Africa will always be an issue, but we can’t arrest the world’s digitalisation on those grounds and simply have to keep up with the times.”
VW has no plans to offer an electric vehicle locally just yet, but has two electric initiatives. A fleet of e-Golfs and later ID.4s will be sampled locally to enable VWSA to gather as much information as it can on electric vehicles in South Africa.
The e-Golfs have already arrived and The Citizen is on the waiting list so expect further information later in the year.
VW isn’t letting the cat out of the bag about its new SUV to slot in between the T-Cross and Tiguan.
Similar to the T-Cross last year, VW will premier the T-Roc first to allow dealerships to take pre-orders in Q2 before the vehicle will make its much-anticipated local arrival in Q3.
The T-Roc made its international debut last year with the R derivative the brand’s first performance SUV. It features a turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol engine with 221kW of power and 400Nm of torque sent to all four wheels via a seven-speed DSG transmission. Details of which derivatives will be available will only be revealed closer to the time.
The brand’s popular compact SUV was launched with only one engine option in 2019 spread over four models.
In Q2 of 2020, VW plans to roll out two additional powertrain options to complement the 85kW TSI 1.o engine. The new range-topping 1.5 TSI Evo engine will produce 110kW of power and 250Nm of torque, while a low-output version of the 1.0 TSI engine will deliver 70kW/160Nm.
The 70kW version will offer the gateway to the T-Cross and initially said to cost ‘’below R300 000’’ in 2019, it remains to be seen if that number is still possible in the light of the financial climate.
With the Golf 8 arriving in South Africa towards the end of the year, the limited edition GTI TCR will be the final sting in the tail of the Golf 7.5.
The TCR’s name was derived from the racing car of the same name – and h a s new car sales throughout 2019, no details have been given on what VW terms the new proudly South African Polo Vivo to be available in Q3, but it should be mainly centered around styling and specification levels.