Road ahead for the people’s car company is exciting, as its electric! Will Volkswagen’s fossil-fuel-powered vehicles be in rear-view mirror?
By Dean Adams Curtis
A couple years hence, if you’re shopping for a Volkswagen, the new VW in your sights may well be an EV. This may be because you’re looking at an e-Golf, the company’s current electric vehicle, or it may be because the automaker has committed to begin building electric drivetrains into all their vehicles beginning in the 2020 model year. Volkswagen calls its EV play “ID”. It will grow into a robust ID family by 2025.
VW is mindful that sales of electric cars rose 60 percent in 2017, and that 2018 could be the first year a million new electric cars are registered.
“As early as 2020 we intend to sell 150,000 e-cars, of which 100,000 will be the ID, and ID SUV,” said Thomas Ulbrich, a member of the VW brand’s board of management for their E-Mobility division. “Speeding up the shift to e-mobility will help us to meet the extremely ambitious carbon dioxide targets that have been set in Europe, China and the USA.”
And Volkswagen’s fossil-fuel-powered vehicles?
As everyone knows, the maker is now shunning diesel. In fact, after a court settlement about their emissions test cheating, they’re pumping money into Electrify America to install a network of electric vehicle fast chargers along the interstates.
One example of Volkswagen’s fossil fuel powered vehicle offering is the Jetta. We attended the high-tech world premiere of the all-new 2019 VW Jetta in Detroit recently, then followed up with a test drive in the horse-friendly LA suburb of Walnut, discovering that the 2019 Jetta has commendable fossil fuel economy. How does it achieve it?
Driving through the hills of sunny Walnut, Volkswagen’s 2019 Jetta seems to stop cold, which, if you’ve had a history with nursing along VW engines on the verge of sputtering out, is disconcerting. However, the Jetta’s engine is minimizing idling, in other words, doing what its well designed to do in order to save fuel.
As I gently touch my shoe to the accelerator pedal. It starts back up instantly and quietly. Soon, I’m ignoring the stopping and starting of the engine, and getting great mileage.
I don’t see anyone out for a one-horse-powered ride, so I push the accelerator pedal toward the metal and discover that the Jetta is not only comfortable and fuel efficient, its a car with plenty of pep.
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