Volkswagen’s new electric Golf gets the Rivian treatment

The Golf is “the heart” of the Volkswagen brand, the automaker said in early 2024, as the iconic model celebrated five decades of its existence.

A 50^Th The anniversary also seems to be the right occasion to bring the Golf fully into its 21st year^st Century: While we already knew that VW was reviving an electric version of the model, the German automaker has just announced that the next-generation Golf will also benefit from Rivian’s cutting-edge software and electrical systems.

VW, like global automakers, is transitioning to producing “software-defined vehicles” (SDVs), whose functionalities and digital experiences can be improved over time. This transition became official back in June when VW announced a joint venture with Rivian.

Meanwhile, the automaker also announced last summer that it would delay the launch of a new flagship electric vehicle (EV) called Trinity, originally scheduled for 2026. German press reports at the time suggested that the delay was intended to make room for none other than the next-generation electric Golf.

And now that VW’s collaboration with Rivian officially began earlier this month, all the pieces are falling into place.

“We have decided what the software-defined vehicle should look like,” said VW boss Thomas Schäfer during a media round. “This will happen with the joint venture in which we will put together the new electro-electronic architecture. But we also decided that we wanted to start this journey with a more iconic product. So let’s start with golf.”

The next generation electric Golf is now expected for 2029, followed by Trinity in the following years.

The Volkswagen-Rivian Company initially plans to leverage Rivian’s electric architecture and software technology stack to enable the launch of Rivian’s R2 mid-size SUV in the first half of 2026 and the launch of Volkswagen models by 2027 to support.