UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Saw this article today and am thankful the Polo will be around for sometime to come:
https://www.carmag.co.za/news/sa-built- ... xt-decade/

The German marque has confirmed to CAR Magazine that the petrol-powered Polo will remain in production at the company’s South African plant until “at least” 2033

There’s an article on the Polo Driver website (link below) which also states production of the ICE Polo will continue until ‘at least 2030’. It’ll be sold in parallel with the ID Polo; the forthcoming electric version.

There’s a strong suggestion the production version of the ID Polo will be virtually unchanged from the ID.2 All prototype. The ID Polo GTI sounds interesting if it’s to get 264 bhp as suggested in the Polo Driver article. Entry level ID Polo’s are expected to have a list price of under €25k (£21.8k) but I’d expect the GTI version to cost significantly more than that. Using Renault’s R5 EV prices as a comparison;

• the cheapest R5 in the UK currently has a list price of just under £23k (£21,500 after the current £1,500 government grant)

• the 220 bhp version of the performance model - the Alpine A290 - starts at £36k or £34.5k after government grant (there’s a lower powered 180 bhp version too; list price starts at £33.5k / £32k after government grant).

I’d anticipate the list price of the ID Polo GTI to be higher than the A290 because of the GTI’s 45 bhp power advantage over the most powerful A290. I’d speculate (a.k.a guess) it’ll have a list price of around £38k, although the price will be heavily influenced by developments in battery technology and battery chemistry used, so it could be cheaper; maybe closer to the price of the current ICE Polo GTI………….. .

http://polodriver.com/id-polo/id-polo-a ... ctric-age/

Here in SA the EV adoption rate is no where near that of the rest of the world because they are still prohibitively expensive and our government is not offering subsidies to purchase them, in fact our government imposes 25% tax rate on all imported vehicles. That said China is coming in here with some excellent EV offers (pricing) but I just cant bring myself to purchase one of them because I simply do not have faith they will last the distance.

I assume the VW factory in Kariega is not geared for EV production which is a concern as well. It does not make sense to produce the batteries elsewhere then ship them to the factory only to be reshipped again once the vehicle is manufactured.