Canada is getting the new base model Volkswagen Mk. 8 Golf after all, as well as VWs new ID.4 electric car but not for a while.During the new generation’s debut last month, it seemed uncertain whether dealerships in the U.S. and Canada would see any trims of the Golf besides the high-performance GTI and R versions.Now, VW Canada has confirmed other, lower-spec trims of the Mk. 8 Golf will come to our shores, along with the high performance GTI and Golf R, though whether they hit the U.S., too, is still up in the air. The Mk. 8 Golf as well as the GTI and Golf R variants will start to arrive some time in 2021 as 2022 models, Thomas Tetzlaff, Volkswagen Canadas public relations manager, recently told The Car Guide.That means well see a small gap between the sale of the last Mk. 7 and the first Mk. 8 for some Golf variants, such as the Golf R, SportWagen and Alltrack, none of which will return for the 2020 model year.In other news, the new fully-electric ID.4 will replace the eGolf as the brands small-EV option, and will lead the way in introducing the ID lineup to Canadian showrooms. The ID.4 is a four-door crossover, with a low roofline and a small footprint.The first ID model in Canada will be the production version of the I.D. Crozz concept. This one is planned for early 2021, said Tetzlaff.Next year, Europeans will get the even-smaller ID.3, which was unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show. Whether that vehicle will make it to Canada remains to be
Origin: Canada’s getting VW’s Mk. 8 Golf and ID.4 — even if the U.S. might not
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News Roundup: Honda’s life-saving new airbag, VW’s sexist ad and more
Hondas next-generation airbagHonda Welcome to our weekly round-up of the biggest breaking stories on Driving.ca from this past week. Get caught up and ready to get on with the weekend, because it’s hard keeping pace in a digital traffic jam.Here’s what you missed while you were away.Honda’s reinvention of the passenger side airbag will save lives Honda’s next-generation passenger front airbag design Honda Honda has partnered with auto safety supplier Autoliv to develop a new kind of passenger side airbag that has the potential to reduce the number and severity of injuries and save lives. Over the last four years, the collaboration piece conceived an airbag with three separate chambers instead of one, and a piece of fabric that bridges them in front like a sail, adding “uninflated volume” and helping to reduce blunt force of impact. Honda says it will debut the next-gen airbags in select models by 2020. U.K. bans VW ad for promoting gender stereotypesIn yet another ‘c’mon VW, you’re better than that’ moment, the German automaker has received a slap on the wrist from advertising authorities in the U.K. for airing an ad that harmfully portrayed gender stereotypes. And, yeah, it’s pretty bad. The men are doing things like floating in a spaceship, leaping across a long jump pit with a prosthetic leg, while the female characters make sandwiches, do laundry and take the baby to the park. Ouch. We’ve said it before and will probably say it again: do better, VW. VW recalls 117,000 cars in Canada over rollaway riskCloser to home, Volkswagen is recalling over a hundred thousand cars in Canada that may be at risk of rolling away unexpectedly. The brand explained that the issue is caused by silicate that builds up on a shift lever switch which then allows the key to be slid out even if the car isn’t in park. So, you park your Jetta on a slight incline up the street from the farmer’s market, get out with your reusable shopping bags and then watch as the car rolls backwards into the organic corn stall. The recall, which also hits some 670,000 vehicles in the U.S., includes a number of Jettas, Golfs, GTIs and Beetles. Dealers can simply add a switch and circuit board to solve the issue, but you’ll still be eating corn for weeks. 15-year-old vanity plate with ‘pee joke’ causes ruckus at the DMVHow do you make the New Hampshire motor vehicle department laugh in 2019? Tell them a joke in 2004. A Rochester woman had her vanity plates pulled by the issuing authorities earlier this year, even though she’d already been using them for 15 years. The seven-character message in question: PB4WEG0. It’s clever, family-friendly and just solid travel advice, but somebody at the DMV didn’t think so. Luckily, the New Hampshire governor read about her pee-pun plight and intervened on her behalf, so the DMV reissued the plates. Next-gen VW Golf nears production The new Golf – still camouflaged The eighth-generation Golf is entering its final phases of testing, says Volkswagen. The brand teased the hot hatch with an image of a test mule draped in camo. Close inspection reveals modified headlights, a more tapered profile and a few other hints at the sort of tech that’ll be packed into it. VW promises it’ll be a “genuine eye catcher” as well as a “digital, intelligent and connected” creature, but we’ll have to wait until fall to determine how right or wrong they
Origin: News Roundup: Honda’s life-saving new airbag, VW’s sexist ad and more
VW’s working on tech to keep you from getting sick in autonomous cars
Motion sickness sucks. For the percentage of the population who are susceptible to this rotten affliction, simply going for a drive with someone else at the wheel is cause enough to turn greener than a twenty-dollar bill, money soon to be spent on a bottle of Febreze to get rid of the smell. The crew at Volkswagen, mindful that bouts of sick can come on even faster in a self-driving car, are working on ways to quell the queasy. At its root, the confusion between the motion your eyes see and the motion your body feels. This is why your author cannot read for an extended time as a passenger. According to VW, about a third of all people are susceptible to it – women more than men, children more than adults – but under the right conditions, anyone can suffer. At the VW research labs in Wolfsburg, scientists are studying what can trigger car sickness and potential ways to help prevent it from happening in a future where the car can mostly drive itself. In one test, researchers are exploring whether changes to the vehicles themselves might help prevent motion sickness, such as via special movable seats that can react to driving changes; and an LED light strip on the door panel that illuminates in green or red. The latter is intended to provide a visual cue for the passenger of braking or acceleration. Out on the test track, volunteers don various sensors and cameras designed to measure pulse, skin temperature, and changes in skin tone. On a 20-minute drive, the sedan will use Automatic Cruise Control to follow a semi-autonomous Passat. During this particular test, a tablet plays video of swimming fish for the volunteer to watch. As the car drives, the volunteer rates their state of health on a tablet. For most, it doesn’t take long to feel ill. VW’s boffins are hoping their inventions can help remove that feeling, though they haven’t released that data quite yet. Autonomous cars are coming – not today, not tomorrow, but eventually – and it’s research like this that’ll help deal with problems most of us haven’t thought of yet. Until then, the rest of us can just keep a bottle of Febreze
Origin: VW’s working on tech to keep you from getting sick in autonomous cars
Lowered VW’s owner says speed bumps are ‘discrimination,’ asks town to pay
Christopher Fitzgibbon and his lowered VW PassatMichael Cowhey / SWNS via the Daily Mail An Irishman whose lowered Volkswagen sedan suffered damage driving over his hometown’s speed bumps wants the town to pay for its repair because, he says, the traffic-calming measures are a form of discrimination. Christopher Fitzgibbon, 23, wants his small town of Galbally in Limerick, Ireland to pay for around £2,000 ($3,400) worth of damages done by driving his lowered VW Passat over the speed bumps, according to The Daily Mail. Fitzgibbon modified the car in March of 2016 to sit about four inches above the ground, but he claims the new speed bumps, installed in September of 2018, are six inches high, which means he can’t drive over them. “I feel discriminated against because I’m driving a modified car – it’s lowered, so it’s four inches off the road – and I’m being denied my right to drive on these roads,” he says. It doesn’t matter what speed I’m at either—I could be driving at 5 km/h or 80 km/h and it wouldn’t make a difference. Having to avoid the speed bumps has meant he can’t drive through the town on his commute, which used to be 50 kilometres. He also says he can’t drive into town to visit the post office, the shops or the pub (which you shouldn’t drive to anyway). Now he must use an alternate route that adds more mileage. Limerick City and County Council has responded by disputing Fitzgibbon’s claim regarding the height of the speed bumps; even though he says they are six inches tall, according to the town’s Traffic Calming Policy Document, they are in fact 75 millimetres tall, or less than three
Origin: Lowered VW’s owner says speed bumps are ‘discrimination,’ asks town to pay
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