Ahead of it’s full reveal, VW has teased the first look at the facelifted VW Golf GTI Mk8.5, which marks the final petrol-powered Golf GTI.
Poised to be fully unveiled at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, VW has given us a glimpse of the facelifted version of its MK8 VW Golf GTI. You might well be asking why a car is being unveiled at an electronics show. Well, that’s because VW wants to show off its latest car tech in the Mk8.5 Golf GTI, and that’s AI chat.
AI chat isn’t all that new, but in recent years it’s peaked the interest of more than most. And that’s not least car manufacturers, who are looking at ways they can incorporate the technology into modern cars. VW has partnered with Cerence to create Cerence Chat Pro. This means that the IDA voice assistant present in VW cars will be able to listen more accurately to voice commands and control an array of different features in the vehicle.
For those concerned about personal data, VW assures that this won’t be affected as ChatGPT does not have access to vehicle information.
What you need to know about the VW Golf GTI Mk8.5
Now we’ve got the AI bit out of the way, what about the rest of the car? Sadly, VW has kept its lips sealed on this one, and all that we know for sure is what we can see from the photos. Which again, isn’t a lot given it’s covered in a camo designed to hide body lines.
If, however, previous generations are anything to go by, we should expect to find some minor tweaks to improve the car as a whole. Expect a touch more power from the EA888 engine and a tightened chassis.
Exterior wise, visibly we can see a more pronounced rear diffuser, accentuated by larger diameter exhaust tips alongside wheels stolen from the Golf R.
Inside the VW Golf GTI Mk8.5, there are a few more changes we can see, but on the whole it’s a similar affair. Biggest of all is the larger infotainment screen, which is used across other cars in the range. One of our biggest flaws with the current Mk8 Golf range was the use of haptic feedback controls on the steering wheel for voice, volume etc. At last they’ve been replaced with physical buttons like on the Mk7. Annoyingly, though, it looks like they’ve just taken them from the bog-standard Golf, which feels a bit cheap. Again, the steering paddles look a touch on the small side, too.
