Volkswagen CEO dashes electric Beetle hopes and dreams despite electric Bug concept in Netflix animated film

The story of a potential electric VW Beetle seems to be going in a similar direction to Hyundai's N Vision 74, upset fans and all. News feeds have been abuzz lately with talk of an electric Volkswagen Beetle thanks to a Beetle EV digital concept showing up in Netflix's Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir. While Volkswagen worked with Netflix to design the electric Beetle for the film, Volkswagen's CEO has recently confirmed in an interview with Autocar that an electric Beetle is not on the cards — not yet, anyway.

I wouldn't say with 100% [certainty]. But from where I stand now, I wouldn't consider it. It's the same as Scirocco: it had its day, then there was a new model based on a reinterpretation. To do that again? I don't think so. — Thomas Schäfer, CEO, Volkswagen. 

Curiously, this stance on the revival of iconic Volkswagen models goes completely counter to what we've seen more recently with the ID. Buzz, for which Volkswagen has leaned very heavily on the history and nostalgia for the VW Type 2 (A.K.A: Kombi, Transporter, or Bus). Volkswagen even went so far as to partner with the International Day Calendar to create International Volkswagen Bus Day, which saw a fair number of classic VW Type 2 Busses flock to Huntington Beach in California on June 2, 2023.

To his credit, Schäfer goes on to emphasise the need for the VW brand has to look forward and continue to reinvent itself if it wants to stay relevant, expressing that chasing nostalgia "would be a dead end." It seems as though EV makers need to walk a fine line when it comes to appealing to nostalgia — a line that the likes of Hyundai walks very well with vehicles like the Ioniq 5 that incorporate retro-inspired elements without compromising on modern design principles.

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