Volkswagen warns that small petrol cars are doomed: ‘The future… is electric’

Car manufacturers are breathing a sigh of relief now that the European Commission is proposing to reverse the 2035 sales ban on new vehicles with combustion engines. However, companies will still need to reduce their fleet emissions by 90 percent compared to 2021 levels. Even before the middle of the next decade, manufacturers must meet stricter CO₂ targets, the latest of which came into effect this year. From 2030, the rules will become even stricter.

With that in mind, Volkswagen warns that small gas cars have no future in Europe. This was said by the CEO of Europe’s best-selling brand Car, motorcycle and sports that models like the Polo will go purely electric. Thomas Schäfer calls it like he sees it: “The future in this segment is electric.” Developing a new B-segment ICE car to meet emissions regulations would be prohibitively expensive. Those costs would inevitably be passed on to customers, making the car too expensive to compete.

Consequently, it’s only a matter of time before the supermini loses its combustion engine altogether and leaves the ID behind. Polo to serve as his indirect successor. A return to the A-segment with a gas car in the form of the tiny up! or the Lupo is also off the table. This decision is a no-brainer given the coming influx of relatively affordable electric vehicles. The electric Polo that will arrive next year will cost €25,000 in its basic configuration.

A production version of the ID was released in 2027. Every1 concept reduces the entry price to € 20,000. Both figures include value added tax (VAT), but do not take into account incentives offered by some EU member states. VW is also planning an electric crossover in Polo format, which ID previewed months ago at the IAA Mobility Show. Cross concept. All three models will run on the MEB+ platform, developed exclusively for electric vehicles.

Although VW will not invest in new small cars with combustion engines, the current crop of ICE models will remain. Wolfsburg has not yet set an end date for the Polo or its crossover brother, the T-Cross. Petrol and electric vehicles will run in parallel indefinitely before conventionally powered models are dropped from the range.

Looking at the most recent sales figures, VW is by far the most popular car manufacturer in the EU. It is the only brand to surpass one million units sold after the first ten months of 2025. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association reports 1,017,781 units sold. If we take into account Great Britain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, the total rises to 1,208,829 vehicles.

While some have rushed to claim that demand for electric cars is cooling, the numbers tell a different story, at least in Europe. Through October, electric cars accounted for 16.4 percent of the EU market, up from 13.2 percent in the same period last year. Including the aforementioned non-EU countries, electric vehicles had a share of 18.3 percent until October. Last year, non-combustion engine vehicles accounted for 14.8 percent of the market in the region. VW’s new affordable electric models are likely to play an important role in driving demand for electric vehicles in the coming years.

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Source: Volkswagen