The eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf revealed Thursday is available with 11 different powertrains, but you might not be able to get it with any of them in the United States.
The automaker, which is expanding its utility vehicle lineup in the U.S., hasn’t yet committed to bringing the mainstream versions of the Golf here, only the high-performance GTI and R models that will be introduced at a later date.
The 2020 Golf features a range of gasoline, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, natural gas and diesel options meant to make it relevant in as many markets as possible. The diesels use two catalytic converters to reduce nitrous oxide emissions in an effort to address concerns raised by VW’s past issues with engines that run on the fuel.
The hatchback shares a strong family resemblance to previous Golfs, but is now only available as a four-door and comes packed with the latest tech. Along with a standard full digital dashboard, it features Car2X technology, which is a developing network that allows vehicles to talk to each other and the infrastructure to share their locations, road conditions and local hazards to better enable safety and future autonomous systems.
The new Golfs are also wirelessly connected to the internet, which allows for the type of over the air feature updates pioneered by Tesla.
Volkswagen has sold over 35 million Golfs since it was introduced in 1974 as a successor to the Beetle, making it the third best-selling model of all time behind the Toyota Corolla and Ford F-Series. The 2020 Golf goes on sale in Europe early next year.