Magazine

New Golf GTI and Golf R lead a performance celebration

Volkswagen will soon launch the highly anticipated eighth-generation (Mk8) versions of the Golf GTI and the Golf R, both widely known as the "hot hatches" of choice for enthusiasts. What better way for enthusiasts to get a sneak peek at these athletic siblings than at Fastivus, a grassroots celebration of Volkswagen performance. According to Megan Closset, Volkswagen of America product manager for the Golf family, the annual Fastivus event is built around driving, “because fun-to-drive is at

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Magazine

33 surprising places you could get work done with a Taos hotspot

If you commuted to an office job prior to the pandemic, you might find there’s no need to return to the office, even as pandemic restrictions shift. For many people, remote work is the new normal. The 2022 Volkswagen Taos compact SUV is ready for this new era. It offers Volkswagen Car-Net® Remote Access1 standard, including a Volkswagen Car-Net® Hotspot with a 1-month/1GB (whichever occurs first) trial subscription.2 With Wi-Fi in your Taos, you can find new opportunities to work just about a

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Magazine

A more joyful way to tour the Bay, in a vintage VW Bus

Josh Armel and Virgine De Paepe, the married couple behind San Francisco’s Painted Ladies Tour Company, have countless stories about how their tour fleet of brightly hued vintage Volkswagen Buses brings joy to guests and passersby alike. There’s the tough-looking biker who suddenly grinned and flashed the peace sign when he spotted one of the Buses. There’s the Bay Area tech company that rented the Painted Ladies fleet for the Pride Parade, tossing daisies to the crowd from one of the Buses.

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Company

Meet the people making an EV revolution happen in America

Building electric vehicles for the future of transportation and the planet doesn’t just require new technologies, but new people behind “the people’s car.” At Volkswagen of America, the G4 e-mobility unit and Engineering and Planning Center (EPC) in Chattanooga help deliver and support the sales of EVs like the ID.4 all-electric SUV. Bringing these vehicles to life requires a set of talents that’s relatively new to the automotive industry – from electrical charging experts to high voltage

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Parts

How a Volkswagen Bus part inspired the KONG dog toy empire

If you are among the millions of American households who adopted a dog during the past 12 months, you’re likely familiar with the KONG toy, a hollow, rugged rubber cone that can be filled with treats. It seems like a perfect shape for chewing – but that wasn’t its first purpose. In 1970, KONG inventor Joe Markham owned an auto repair shop in downtown Denver that was prone to burglary. “It wasn’t a great area at the time,” says company president K.D. Decker. Frustrated, the 25-year-old auto

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Community

Onion Creek Volkswagen teams up with Tankproof to provide community swim lessons and meals

Motivation to support a cause or help others in need can come in different forms. For some, a pivotal moment can incite action. Others may just find themselves in the right place at the right time to do a good deed. Sometimes, it’s both. For twin brothers Thurman and Torrence Thomas, it was a near-drowning experience at the age of 9 that inspired them to launch an organization that offers no-cost swim lessons and water safety classes to underserved communities. For Austin, Texas-based dea

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Vehicles

Eight of the coolest Volkswagen concept cars

Over the years, Volkswagen has debuted a wide range of concept cars that have opened windows into the future of car design, technology and performance. These dream machines are often built to test an idea, a vision and/or showcase features that may one day end up on the road.  Some of these groundbreaking vehicles – like the all-new VW ID.4 EV, born from the ID. CROZZ – have made their way to the company’s line-up, though many others were seen once on an auto show floor and then never again. 

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Vehicles

Blending the past and present in the Volkswagen GTI BBS concept

The Volkswagen Golf GTI has defined the genre of  hot hatch for decades, and the new 2022 Golf GTI follows in tradition. But progress doesn’t have to mean losing sight of heritage– which is why Volkswagen and Philadelphia-based VW enthusiast Jamie Orr worked together on an enthusiast concept that injects a healthy dose of the past into the latest generation. The inspiration for the concept was an enthusiast-built Mk2 version of the GTI, which supplanted the only U.S.-built generation of the G

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Vehicles

Four first-time EV owners share why they made the switch to the ID.4 EV

What makes someone choose to purchase an electric vehicle for the first time? We spoke with four new owners of the all-electric Volkswagen ID.4 about what motivated them to make the switch and embrace an electric future. Erick Freligh, a 50-year business systems analyst in Bothell, Washington, was considering what new Volkswagen to purchase next—in the past, he has owned a 1967 Beetle, 1986 Golf and 2012 CC—when an ad for the ID.4 popped up on his screen. He was instantly intrigued. “I

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Community

How a telepresence robot made a young soccer enthusiast’s dreams come true

Like a lot of 10-year-old soccer fans, Luna Perrone of Palm Beach, Florida, has a few favorite stars – like Alex Morgan, the U.S. Women’s National Team forward and Volkswagen Ambassador. Unlike most other young supporters, however, Perrone has some high hurdles to clear in order to see Alex in person at a match, let alone have the opportunity to meet her. The biggest hurdle - Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that requires intense treatments close to her home. Or that was the case until

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Company

Volkswagen takes the quantum computing revolution from the lab to the factory

From artificial intelligence to cloud computing and beyond, Volkswagen Group of America has one of the most aggressive portfolios of technology developments in the automotive sector. That also includes research and development in quantum computing, a space where Volkswagen has worked alongside key innovators to bring cutting-edge innovation into real-world use. Quantum computing uses the imprecise nature of quantum mechanics – the physics of how individual atoms and subatomic particles in

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Company

Why AI and app stores will power Volkswagen factories in North America

The technological changes that have turned cars into software-driven machines have begun to apply to the factories that build them too. Backed by an estimated $1 billion investment in electric mobility and digitalization in North America through 2025, Volkswagen plans to roll out technologies such as cloud-based industrial software, new intelligent robotics and artificial intelligence throughout the factories in its North American Region. The goal? A 30 percent improvement in productivity by

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ID.4

Ten surprisingly smart features on the Volkswagen ID.4 SUV

Today’s electric vehicles feature an abundance of technology, which can often be overwhelming to someone new to EVs. However, the new Volkswagen ID.4 SUV was designed with the goal of simplifying the driver’s life by creating an easy and enjoyable experience behind its wheel. The ID.4 offers a wide range of intelligent features, including smart technology Volkswagen offers across its lineup, like wireless App-Connect for compatible devices, voice controls, and a kick-to-open rear hatch – along w

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History

#TBT: The Beetle successors that never were

The Volkswagen Beetle is an icon. Over the years, it has symbolized many different things to many different people, from a classic example of German ingenuity to the calling card for a counterculture movement to a reminder that the simplest of things can sometimes be the best. Above all, it set the standard by which all other small, economy cars are judged. From the beginning of the modern Volkswagen, the Beetle was a boom car for affordable transportation in Europe and elsewhere, and by 1952

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Community

Photographer William Woodward on capturing America in a VW Vanagon Westfalia

For the past six years, William “Willie” Woodward has been living and traveling across the United States in his 1990 Vanagon GL. A travel, adventure and commercial photographer, Willie has taken his two-wheel drive, maroon companion, dubbed “Ruby,” on a series of wild adventures – from the backwoods of Montana to the rocky hills of California and slick-rock canyons of Utah. His social media account and blog, both entitled Where to Willie, serve as a photo journal of the pair’s escapades.

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Enthusiast Event

Volkswagen showcases vintage electric Type 2 transporter at Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance

Volkswagen showcased a 1979 Elektrotransporter that was used in a pilot study by the Tennessee Valley Authority at the annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance to reflect the show’s dual electric vehicle themes—EVs from the dawn of motoring and EVs of the present and future. Now in its third decade, the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance has inspired automakers from around the world to bring their rare rides and gather with like-minded car enthusiasts on the fairways of Amelia Island, Flor

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Magazine

6 driving situations where IQ.DRIVE can lend a hand

No matter how focused you are when behind the wheel, or how careful you are in everyday driving, things happen—like a sudden obstacle or a vehicle you can’t see in your mirrors. And no matter how comfortable it is inside your vehicle, that highway commute can be a little stressful. To help you better manage these situations, Volkswagen has developed advanced driver-assistance technology called IQ.DRIVE. Available on many model-year 2021 Volkswagen vehicles and standard on the Volkswagen ID.4

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Community

#TBT: Remembering Bruce Meyers, creator of the Meyers Manx

Bruce Meyers lived the life most people only read about. A surfer, inventor, artist, war hero and racecar driver, Meyers distilled the essence of 1960s Southern California car culture with the invention of his Meyers Manx, a Volkswagen Beetle-based buggy that went where the pavement ended. Last week, Meyers passed away at the age of 94. A creator of the race which would come to be known as the famed Baja 1000, Bruce was an energizing soul of car culture until the very end, living and celebrat

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Vehicles

Why American drivers prefer monochrome vehicles – and why that might change soon

If you drove down an American street and looked only at the new vehicles, you might be forgiven for thinking you’re in a black-and-white movie. Last year, U.S. car buyers chose white more often than any other color, followed closely by silver and black, according to experts in automotive paints. That’s been the trend for a decade, part of a longer evolution toward muted shades in automotive exteriors stretching back 70 years. It’s one that Volkswagen experts see as likely to continue – wi

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Innovation

How Volkswagen Automotive Cloud will help shape the connected car of tomorrow

Seattle may not be known as a hotbed for the U.S. automotive industry, but that’s changing, thanks to the increasing importance of cloud computing for connected and autonomous vehicles. In recent years, Seattle’s nickname of “Cloud City” has not only referred to the weather, but for the industry built around some of the best cloud companies and experts in the world. That’s why Volkswagen Group chose the city to help shape the future of connected vehicles with the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud.

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News

Meet two of the first Volkswagen ID.4 EV owners: a solar-powered grandmother and a baseball superfan

Alice Dibben has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. A former cryptanalyst at the National Security Agency, she mastered early modern computing systems to help collect and decipher complex codes. At age 80, she installed 120 solar panels on the roof of her barn in Pasadena, Md., to help reduce her carbon footprint. And now, the 91-year-old grandmother and horse breeder has kept her innovation streak going by embracing electric driving with the Volkswagen ID.4 EV.

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