VW's Diess: new Golf must take off by end of year

Volkswagen managers must ensure that they launch the latest-generation Golf by the end of this year, Ceo Herbert Diess said speaking at the internal Global Top Management Conference before 500 senior managers from all brands and regions.

Diess said the VW brand was in the middle of preparing for series production of the eighth-generation compact hatchback.

«We are fighting hard with the ramp-up. We will meet our deadline and deliver the first vehicles at the end of this year» Diess told.

In developing the new generation of the Golf software glitches have bedeviled engineers, in large part because the Golf will have the ability to be updated over the air. This exposes the vehicle to hacking and requires more extensive cybersecurity measures be taken.

In addition, the new Golf software is more complex than its predecessor, with 100 million lines of code versus just 10 million.