Automakers 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 have to slash fleet emissions by 90 percent compared to 2021 levels. Even before the middle of the next decade, manufacturers must meet tighter CO₂ targets, the latest of which came into effect this year. From 2030 onward, the rules of the game will become even stricter.
With that in mind, Volkswagen is warning that small gas-powered cars have no future in Europe. The CEO of Europe’s best-selling brand told Auto Motor und Sport that models such as the Polo will go purely electric. Thomas Schäfer calls it as he sees it: “The future in this segment is electric.” Developing a new ICE car in the B-segment to comply with emissions regulations would be prohibitively expensive. Those costs would inevitably be passed on to customers, making the car too costly to compete.
Consequently, it’s only a matter of time before the supermini loses its combustion engine altogether, leaving the ID. Polo to serve as its indirect successor. A return to the A-segment with a gas-powered car in the mold of the tiny up! or the Lupo is also off the table. This decision is a no-brainer given the upcoming influx of relatively affordable EVs. The electric Polo arriving next year will cost €25,000 in its basic configuration.
In 2027, a production version of the ID. Every1 concept will lower the entry price to €20,000. Both figures include value-added tax (VAT) but do not account for incentives offered by some EU member states. VW is also planning a Polo-sized electric crossover, previewed months ago at the IAA Mobility Show by the ID. Cross concept. All three models will ride on the MEB+ platform, developed exclusively for electric vehicles.
Although VW won’t invest in new small cars powered by combustion engines, the current crop of ICE models will stick around. Wolfsburg has not set an end date for the Polo or its crossover sibling, the T-Cross. Gas and electric vehicles will run in parallel for an unspecified period before conventionally powered models are dropped from the lineup.
Looking at the most recent sales figures, VW is by far the most popular automaker in the EU. It’s the only brand to surpass one million sales after the first ten months of 2025. The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association reports 1,017,781 units sold. When factoring in the UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, the total rises to 1,208,829 vehicles.
Although some have hastily claimed that EV demand is cooling, the figures 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 non-EU countries mentioned earlier, EVs held an 18.3 percent share through October. Last year, vehicles without a combustion engine accounted for 14.8 percent of the region’s market. VW’s new affordable electric models are likely to play a significant role in driving EV demand in the coming years.
Volkswagen ID.Every1 concept
Source: Auto Motor und Sport
