Automakers are breathing a sigh of relief now that the European Commission is proposing to scrap a 2035 sales ban on new vehicles with combustion engines. However, companies still have to reduce fleet emissions by 90 percent compared to 2021 levels. Before the middle of the next decade, manufacturers must meet the tough ₂ targets, the latest of which came into effect this year. From 2030 onwards, the rules of the game will get tougher.
With that in mind, Volkswagen warns that small gas-powered cars have no future in Europe. said the CEO of Europe’s best-selling brand Auto Motor & Sport Those models like the Polo will go fully electric. Thomas Schaefer sees it as he sees it: “The future of this segment is electric.” Developing a new Icecar in the B-segment to comply with emissions regulations would be prohibitively expensive. These costs will necessarily be passed on to the consumer, making the car too expensive to compete with.
As a result, it was only a matter of time before the supermini lost its combustion engine altogether, dropping the ID. Polo to serve as his indirect successor. The return of the A-segment with a gas-powered car in the mold of a miniature! Or even Lupo is off the table. This decision is a no-brainer given the upcoming arrival of relatively affordable EVs. The electric Polo, arriving next year, will cost Rs 25,000 in its basic configuration.
In 2027, a production version of I.D. Every 1 concept will reduce the entry price by $20,000. Both figures include value-added tax (VAT) but do not account for incentives offered by some EU member states. VWID is also planning a Polo-sized electric crossover previewed months ago at the IAA Mobility Show. Cross concept. All three models will ride on the MEB+ platform, which has been developed exclusively for electric vehicles.
Photo by: Volkswagen
While VW won’t be investing in new small cars powered by combustion engines, the current crop of Ice models will stick around. Wolfsburg hasn’t set a deadline for the Polo or its crossover sibling, the T-Cross. The gas and electric vehicles will run side-by-side indefinitely before the conventionally powered models are dropped from the lineup.
Looking at recent sales figures, VW is by far the most popular carmaker in the European Union. It is the only brand to cross one million sales after the first ten months of 2025. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association reported 1,017,781 units sold. When factoring in the UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, the total comes to 1,208,829 vehicles.
While some have been quick to claim that demand for EVs is cooling, the data tell a different story, at least in Europe. During 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 previously mentioned non-EU countries, EVS accounted for 18.3 percent during October. Last year, vehicles without combustion engines accounted for 14.8 percent of the region’s market. VW’s new affordable electric models are likely to play a major role in driving EV demand in the coming years.
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Source: Volkswagen
Source:
Auto Motor & Sport
