Volkswagen Australia is bracing for sales of its popular Golf small car to all-but-stop in early 2023 as the global supply chain crisis continues to cause drama for carmakers.
The company has revealed that it cannot secure enough reversing cameras for the five-door hatch and does not want to sell the model locally without such a significant safety and convenience feature.
“We won’t take a car without a reversing camera,” said a VW Australia spokesperson.
The move means the hatch will be almost entirely unavailable to customers in the first quarter of 2023, between January and March. This will impact the entire five-door range, including the popular GTI and R hot hatch variants. Fortunately for the German brand, the Golf wagon isn’t impacted by the camera shortage and will remain available.
Losing the Golf will be a major blow for the brand, but not as bad as it could have been a few years ago when it was the most popular Volkswagen available. It’s currently the company’s fifth most-popular model in Australia – behind the T-Cross, Amarok, T-Roc and Tiguan Allspace.
Thankfully the introduction of the compact SUVs, particularly the T-Roc will minimise the impact of the Golf’s absence. Volkswagen’s spokesperson said there should be good supply of the T-Roc in early 2023, so dealers will be encouraged to try and sell would-be Golf buyers into the similar-sized SUV alternative.
Supply constraints caused by a lack of key components has been plaguing most carmakers. With restrictions on the five-seat Tiguan also continuing, Volkswagen Australia has developed several limited-edition models that remove a missing component (electrically adjustable seats, for example) and replaces them with other, more widely available parts. This has seen the creation of the Tiguan Allspace Adventure, Tiguan Monochrome and the T-Roc R Grid Edition, which have all been available to Australian customers with less waiting time.
Despite losing the Golf, Volkswagen Australia is still confident that it will enjoy 20 per cent sales growth in 2023, with new Amarok on sale alongside its extended range of SUVs that include the T-Cross, T-Roc, Tiguan, Tiguan Allspace and Touareg.
Volkswagen is confident that supply of the cameras will return by the end of March and allow for Golf sales to resume to normal levels by the second quarter.
Keyword: 2023 Volkswagen Golf sales are about to stop - this is the reason why