Volkswagen Reinvents GTI Logo for Electric Era

Volkswagen will redesign the GTI logo for the electric age by adding a lightning bolt in place of the final letter. The new logo, which indicates that the moniker will endure in the electric era, was found in a trademark application submitted to the German Patent and Trademark Office.

Volkswagen values the GTI name highly, thus it looks that the acronym’s meaning will need to change as a result of this new emblem. Currently, it refers to “Grand Touring Injection,” with the last component clearly referencing fuel injection. It looks that the name “GTI” will simply be repurposed with the last letter being changed to a lightning bolt, which means that the GTX designation now used to identify high-performance VW EVs may be dropped.

Patent image of Golf GTI’s new logo

Another option is that the automobile will only be partially electrified based on this new logo. The GTI name is too valuable to keep on niche items, and until VW’s complete line is electric, we don’t see any value in keeping the GTX name around. It’s possible that Volkswagen may continue to apply the GTX moniker to fully electric vehicles, reserving GTI for models that are merely hybridized.

Regarding the Golf specifically, Thomas Schaefer, CEO of VW Passenger Cars, predicts that the current 8th generation will continue to be produced “until the end of the decade,” after which Volkswagen “will have to see how the segment develops.”