► VW boss unveils ‘True Volkswagen’ plan
► Five steps to VW greatness again
► More buttons, real names and better quality

‘It was clear to me from the beginning that we were actually losing our core.’ Pretty strong words from the boss of one of the world’s biggest car makers – Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen.

For the announcement of the True Volkswagen program, Schäfer tells the story of how he became CEO of the brand – and it made for ‘a serious headache.’ He admits that some of that will be because, when he took on the role almost four years ago, he had Covid. But he admits that ‘you immediately see where things are not working’ when he took the job and knew some serious changes were needed.

The brand has been in a wobbly place for some time. It’s had to commit to electric while balancing combustion and hybrid models in various markets, for example. It’s made some strange decisions about how it names its cars and how it’s designed interiors – both of which have largely blown up in its face and harmed sales. In 2025, it had to close a factory in Germany for the first time in the company’s history. And, on top of all that, it’s the headline brand within a wider VW Group that had its profits halved in the same year.

‘But a brand doesn’t change overnight,’ says Schäfer. ‘It’s through small decisions and through things we do every day.’ Indeed, Schäfer has spent the last four years of his career unpicking bad decisions and course-correcting the Volkswagen brand. It’s not been easy, with the boss saying he and his team have had ‘quite a journey – geopolitics, supply chains, competition and so on. But, more importantly, we had to change ourselves and create a new mindset.

‘We’ve had one clear goal: to build real Volkswagens again, he adds. ‘Cars that carry the spirit of the brand and ones that feel like real Volkswagens.’ Which is effectively what this ‘True Volkswagen’ program is all about: bringing back VW to the heartland of what makes the brand a success. We’ve noticed that plan seems to have five distinct steps, so let’s go through them.

Step one: bring back buttons and real names

The ID.3 was criticised largely in two main areas: its poor-quality interior and its rather soulless name. Volkswagen had, for a long time, been a brand that still made models that had real names that meant things to people: Golf, Polo, Scirocco and so on. By contrast, ID.3 removed the warmth from VW’s new-era electric car that Schäfer felt was needed to help it succeed.

The bigger problem, though, was the interior. For years, VWs had always been a leader in the mainstream market as a brand that could make a car’s interior feel solid and dependable; as much as people bemoaned the Mk4 Golf GTI as being too stodgey, the regular hatch was lauded as an example to the rest of the world on how to make a high-quality cabin. But the ID.3’s interior felt too hollow and low-quality in places where it mattered, cheapening the brand’s image.

Both of these criticisms will soon be fixed. While the updated ID.3 (named Neo) keeps its fax machine name, the interior is said to be significantly overhauled. Other names will remain in place, with the ID. Tiguan tagline expected to replace the ID.4 after Schäfer confirmed a return to real names for all its cars at the 2025 Munich motor show.

More importantly, though, we’ve already seen the interior of the ID. Polo (pictured above) that launches later in the year, and it comes with far more physical buttons for climate controls and driver aids. Hurrah.

Step two: focus on ‘people, not features’

Those are Schäfer’s exact words. ‘Before we start developing a car, we actually ask ourselves: ‘who is actually going to drive this car?’’, he says before providing an example of a nurse who works shifts and looks after her kids.

‘Our teams did something new where they made comics of her life with her using her car, and something clicked within them. That changed everything in the way we would do development faster, more focused and much closer to reality.’

Step three: become ‘master of the matrix’ again

Other than British Leyland, the Volkswagen Group is perhaps best known for how much it part and platform-shares between its brands. The VW Polo is also a Skoda Fabia and Seat Ibiza, for example, while the Golf has long spread itself across multiple body styles and brands over decades.

The reasserted aim with True Volkswagen is to ‘bring technology from higher segments and make it accessible to the lower ones,’ in Schäfer’s words, and keep leaning on the huge scale of the Group to maximise what can be done with one platform. Schäfer claims the the brand and Group are doing that again with MEB Plus – the front-driven electric car platform that starts with cars like the VW ID. Polo and the recently revealed Cupra Raval (pictured below). It’s said to be better packaged than the original MEB architecture and improves the tech on board.

‘The advantages of our platforms hasn’t only been about scale, though,’ Schäfer tells us. ‘It’s the flexibility of MQB, and now MEB Plus [which is also used by Cupra for the Raval and the new Skoda Epiq] and the upcoming SSP [Scalable Systems Platform].

‘Because of our size, we have historically had quite sizable R&D operations that are very cost efficient in places like Mexico and Brazil, or at Skoda and Seat,’ he adds. ‘But we have been using them somewhat inefficiently because everybody has been working for themselves. We are changing that.’

Step four: keep Andy Mindt cranking out design hits

Perhaps one of the car industry’s biggest bromances is the one between Schäfer and VW design head Andreas Mindt (pictured below, middle), with Thomas speaking highly of the enthusiastic head of design and how he envisioned VW’s significant course correction.

‘I remember my first design meetings that I had regularly on a Monday evening,’ says Schäfer. ‘Those early meetings were, shall we say… frustrating, because I kept thinking: ‘oh my God, this is not Volkswagen!’ And then, in December of 2022, I met Andy Mindt and my life changed in the first conversation we had.’ Schäfer tells of how Mindt quickly sketched how VWs should look like and how he interpreted the brand, and Thomas was hooked.

Mindt and his team are the creative vision behind the ID. Polo, upcoming ID. Cross SUV as well as the ID. Every1 concept car that previews a circa-£15,000 city car due from 2028. These cars are all clean looking, tidy and feel like premium products – even in segments that don’t command a premium price.

Subhead: Step five: don’t f*** up the Golf again

The Golf over its more-than-50-year history has not had a perfect record by any stretch. But, when the Mk8 arrived sporting a similarly fiddly and low-quality interior to the ID.3, it felt like the perennial hatch was at its lowest ebb yet. Both Mindt and Schäfer are in the middle of making sure that never happens again.

As we write this, the brand is in the middle of shaping the design of its Mk9 Golf, which reportedly isn’t due until at least 2028 and has the whole car industry waiting for VW to make its move.

Is Schäfer worried? ‘Not at all,’ he smirks. ‘We have this debate frequently, we look at design models and the ideas of the design team and it’s usually quite fun. For the Golf, the first shot that I saw… I was already saying ‘wow’. And we actually showed it to our management team in December in Berlin.

‘It’s difficult, right? Because the Golf has to be a proper Volkswagen but you don’t want it to look retro. But with this one, I’m already thinking: ‘yes, wow, cool.’