The Humble VW Golf Is Getting An Audi-Style Digital Dash

Buried deep in the midst of Volkswagen's annual shareholder meeting document are our first teasers at what the 2020 Golf 8's interior will look like ahead of its official release this October—and it's a hell of a lot different than what we're used to seeing from the Golf.

Chances are, you've seen the teasers and spy photos of the new Golf 8, so the exterior sketches included in the shareholder documents probably won't come as much of a surprise. But now that we can take a peek at the cockpit, it's looking like we're going to have ourselves a pretty big change.

Namely, the Golf 8 is going the way of Audi in terms of distancing itself from analog controls.

I'm quite pleased to see that VW has opted for what looks to be a pretty reasonably-sized screen here compared to some other automakers, though. Not to sound too archaic, but this whole screen situation has been getting out of hand. It seems like you'll even be using a screen to turn on headlights along with a few other controls. Here's hoping that little screen is infallible to electronic failure!

Of course, this is all a lot of speculation derived from a digital rendering—we won't know for sure what the interior will be until actual images are released. But overall, it's an interesting pivot by VW to keep the Golf aligned with the modern evolution of cockpit technology, and I'm interested to see how digital they've actually gone.