Good News? VW Suddenly Can’t Keep Up with GTE Demand

According to VW, one of its ad campaigns has been too successful. It has come to this conclusion following a sudden and unexpected spike in GTE demand that’s forcing VW to stop taking orders.

“We have temporarily stopped taking orders for the Golf GTE,” said a spokesperson in a statement that went up on the company’s German site. “We had a high number of orders last year and into this year, which was partly driven by the successful ‘Push the Button’ marketing campaign.”

Apparently, the ad was so good that the people ordered enough GTEs to reach production capacity at the factory. As a result, the build time for some of the orders (before VW shut the order books) ran into the months.

The GTE is a performance-oriented plug-in hybrid that mates a 1.4-liter TSI engine making about 150 hp to a 75 kW electric motor. Good for 50 km (about 30 miles) of pure electric range, the motor and the engine combine for a total output of about 200 hp and a 0-60 split of 7.6 seconds.

This is the second time this year that VW has had an unexpected run on Golfs. Back at the beginning of the year, Europeans became so suddenly enamored of the e-Golf that VW couldn’t keep up with production of that model either.

The news is good for VW, since its post Dieselgate strategy has revolved largely around the construction of electric or electrified vehicles. Unfortunately for buyers, though, the first set of EVs based on its MEB platform aren’t due for another year, so they’ll just have to wait.

[via: CarBuzz]

The post Good News? VW Suddenly Can’t Keep Up with GTE Demand appeared first on VWVortex.

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