Volkswagen will stop motorsport and will devote resources to EVs

Volkswagen Motorsport, the business unit that develops racing cars, is closed. The employees are transferred to parent company Volkswagen to further develop electric cars.

There were still 169 employees active at Volkswagen Motorsport and they will transfer to Volkswagen AG in the coming months . Volkswagen Motorsport’s activities had already been significantly scaled back. At the end of last year, the Volkswagen division decided to focus only on electric racing cars and to stop developing combustion engines.

Volkswagen Motorsport has set fast times at the Nürburgring and the hillclimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in recent years with its electric ID.R. The technical expertise of the team that worked on the ID.R will continue to be used in the development of the ID family of electric cars, according to Volkswagen.

Volkswagen ID.R
Electric Volkswagen ID.R
The Polo GTI R5 and Golf GTI TCR are still used in rally and circuit races respectively. According to the manufacturer, there is enough stock of spare parts to provide teams with them in the long term. Production of the Polo GTI R5 will stop at the end of this year.

At the beginning of this year, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said that the company must quickly transform into a tech company , in order not to end up like Nokia. He then said that 2020 should be the year in which Volkswagen shows how ‘agile and responsive’ the manufacturer has become.

Volkswagen is not the only car manufacturer to phase out its motorsport activities. In October, Honda announced its withdrawal from Formula 1 after 2021 . The Japanese car manufacturer is an engine supplier in that racing class, but will use the money and resources that are being deployed for the further development of emission-free cars. Honda is still active in other racing classes.