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One of Volkswagen’s most iconic cars has a post-gasoline future.
Porsche salespeople, college girls, horsepower-obsessed tuners, lawyers, journalists, avowed street racers, moms and dads, and wealthy businesspeople — all are folks I’ve met in my travels who have owned Volkswagen Golf GTIs. It’s rare to see such a radically diverse group of car owners. But the GTI has spent nearly 50 years delivering driving joy in a surprisingly affordable and practical package, so its appeal has stretched far and wide.
Now, this automotive icon will have a future beyond gasoline as well, and that’s worth getting excited about.
This weekend at the IAA Mobility Show in Munich, Volkswagen debuted the ID.GTI Concept: essentially a preview of an all-electric GTI to come soon. While “concept cars” in the automotive world can often represent wild ideas or meager previews of far-flung things car companies might want to do, VW has confirmed the ID.GTI will go into production in a few years. And like the gasoline-powered GTI’s relationship to the Golf, the electric ID.GTI is essentially a faster, better-handling, better-equipped version of the Volkswagen ID.2all unveiled a few months ago. For fans of exciting cars that don’t command six-figure price tags, it’s hard to overstate what a big deal an electric GTI would be.
An image of the ID.GTI Concept.Courtesy of Volkswagen
It’s also hard to overstate the importance of the GTI to the automotive landscape. If you want something fun to drive, but need some actual trunk space or have to get the kids to school on time, the so-called “hot hatchback” — essentially a practical, roomy economy car given a more powerful engine and other enhancements — is a great way to go. And the GTI is the O.G. of the hot hatch world, the car that started it all. Launched in 1976 as a powered-up version of the humble Golf, the GTI was an immediate hit that helped VW move past the ancient Beetle and Microbus and into a modern, safer and more efficient era of driving.
Even as the GTI launched the hot hatch segment and inspired a raft of competitors from nearly every car company, over the decades it has consistently racked up awards from motoring journalists, built up a huge community of loyal fans, and became a car-modifying scene unto itself. At almost any given car show, you’ll see a GTI (or even just a Golf) that’s been painted wild colors, covered in stickers, lowered, fitted with outrageous wheels, received an unhinged engine transplant, or all of the above; people do crazy stuff to these cars.
Or they just drive them to the office and have a spirited drive on the weekends. That’s the magic of the GTI; it’s an “all of the above” option in ways that cars like the Mazda Miata and Chevrolet Camaro can’t match.
All the while, the GTI has kept its relatively humble price tag — the current one starts at a very reasonable $30,530 — and its focus on fuel economy. It’s always offered thrills with a high-tech four-cylinder engine (and briefly, an unusually small V6 option), eschewing the huge gas-guzzling motors typical of other performance cars.
But times are changing. Good fuel economy doesn’t cut it anymore. Emissions rules are getting tougher globally as the end of internal combustion can be seen on the horizon. Partially in penance for its diesel-cheating sins, VW is going all-electric in the coming years. Plus, attitudes are changing, too; this year, the Austrian town that for decades hosted a massive GTI meetup (think a giant music festival, but for modified Volkswagens) canceled the event out of environmental concerns. VW had to save the day by moving it to its headquarters in Wolfsburg.
The ID.GTI might be a far more welcome sight instead. Though no specifics around power (or range) have been released yet, as an electric car the ID.GTI will almost certainly be the quickest GTI ever. VW says it can even electronically emulate the driving feel and noises of the vintage ones. In other words, if you owned a GTI in the ‘80s or 2000s, this one can sound just like it. The concept keeps a number of must-haves from past GTIs, too, like the tartan plaid seats, red trim on the grille and the “Golf ball” gear shifter — here, that’s a control module that lets you adjust how the car drives.
The ID.GTI likely won’t go on sale until 2027, Car and Driver predicts. But Americans may have reasons to mark their calendars whenever we get an official date. Earlier this year, Volkswagen gave a hard “no” when asked if the ID.2all would ever come to our shores. You can thank the U.S. car market being overwhelmingly dominated by large trucks and SUVs for that.
But will the ID.GTI come to America? “The answer is … we’re looking into it,” a VW spokesperson told me. That fits with past precedent. The base Golf was discontinued for America a few years ago, but the GTI (and its more powerful, more expensive big brother the Golf R) remains on sale here. That’s because there’s still a market for VW’s fun hot hatches here; I’d wager the GTI has eclipsed the Golf itself in America in terms of popularity and prominence.
I believe there’s absolutely a market for a fun, affordable electric hot hatch in America too, especially if VW can find ways to get battery and production costs down over the next few years. Look at the great sales year the Tesla Model 3 is having; same with the soon-to-be-discontinued (and then revived) Chevrolet Bolt, or the considerable hype around the ultra-compact Volvo EX30. Americans would drive cheap EVs if we had the chance, and if we want to lower emissions across the board, we can’t count on $60,000 SUVs to do it. There is no reason to believe that an electric GTI couldn’t be a hit just like the original one was, even if its Golf sibling doesn’t make it here.
But for me, there’s an even deeper appeal to the ID.GTI. I try to draw a line between car culture — traffic-clogged cities, long commutes, no public transit, the prioritization of driving over biking and walking — and car enthusiast culture. The latter is something that, while far from perfect, is a force that drives diverse communities, creates lasting bonds and is filled with people eager to help each other out. I don’t want to see car enthusiast culture die with gasoline; rather, I’d like to see gearheads lead the charge for a cleaner, better, smarter future.
And if the Volkswagen GTI — the ride of choice for everyday people who want occasional backroad fun and the “Yes, this should have 1,000 horsepower and sit just three inches off the ground” crowd alike — can help make that happen, it deserves an electric future.
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A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.
This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hiya Brian. So why’d you get into the hail issue?
Obviously solar panels are made with glass that can allow the sunlight to come through. People have to remember that when you install a project, you’re financing it for 35 to 40 years. While the odds of you getting significant hail in California or Arizona are low, it happens a lot throughout the country. And if you think about some of these large projects, they may be in the middle of nowhere, but they are taking hundreds if not thousands of acres of land in some cases. So the chances of them encountering large hail over that lifespan is pretty significant.
We partnered with one of the country’s foremost experts on hail and developed a really interesting technology that can digest radar data and tell folks if they’re developing a project what the [likelihood] will be if there’s significant hail.
Solar panels can withstand one-inch hail – a golfball size – but once you get over two inches, that’s when hail starts breaking solar panels. So it’s important to understand, first and foremost, if you’re developing a project, you need to know the frequency of those events. Once you know that, you need to start thinking about how to design a system to mitigate that risk.
The government agencies that look over land use, how do they handle this particular issue? Are there regulations in place to deal with hail risk?
The regulatory aspects still to consider are about land use. There are authorities with jurisdiction at the federal, state, and local level. Usually, it starts with the local level and with a use permit – a conditional use permit. The developer goes in front of the township or the city or the county, whoever has jurisdiction of wherever the property is going to go. That’s where it gets political.
To answer your question about hail, I don’t know if any of the [authority having jurisdictions] really care about hail. There are folks out there that don’t like solar because it’s an eyesore. I respect that – I don’t agree with that, per se, but I understand and appreciate it. There’s folks with an agenda that just don’t want solar.
So okay, how can developers approach hail risk in a way that makes communities more comfortable?
The bad news is that solar panels use a lot of glass. They take up a lot of land. If you have hail dropping from the sky, that’s a risk.
The good news is that you can design a system to be resilient to that. Even in places like Texas, where you get large hail, preparing can mean the difference between a project that is destroyed and a project that isn’t. We did a case study about a project in the East Texas area called Fighting Jays that had catastrophic damage. We’re very familiar with the area, we work with a lot of clients, and we found three other projects within a five-mile radius that all had minimal damage. That simple decision [to be ready for when storms hit] can make the complete difference.
And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.
1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.
2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.
3. Garrett County, Maryland – Fight readers tell me they’d like to hear a piece of good news for once, so here’s this: A 300-megawatt solar project proposed by REV Solar in rural Maryland appears to be moving forward without a hitch.
4. Stark County, Ohio – The Ohio Public Siting Board rejected Samsung C&T’s Stark Solar project, citing “consistent opposition to the project from each of the local government entities and their impacted constituents.”
5. Ingham County, Michigan – GOP lawmakers in the Michigan State Capitol are advancing legislation to undo the state’s permitting primacy law, which allows developers to evade municipalities that deny projects on unreasonable grounds. It’s unlikely the legislation will become law.
6. Churchill County, Nevada – Commissioners have upheld the special use permit for the Redwood Materials battery storage project we told you about last week.
Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.
Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.
Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.
But something else is now on the rise: Counties are passing anti-renewables moratoria and ordinances restricting solar and wind energy development. We analyzed Heatmap Pro data on local laws and found a rise in local restrictions starting in 2021, leading to nearly 20 of the state’s 99 counties – about one fifth – having some form of restrictive ordinance on solar, wind or battery storage.
What is sparking this hostility? Some of it might be counties following the partisan trend, as renewable energy has struggled in hyper-conservative spots in the U.S. But it may also have to do with an outsized focus on land use rights and energy development that emerged from the conflict over carbon pipelines, which has intensified opposition to any usage of eminent domain for energy development.
The central node of this tension is the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline. As we explained in a previous edition of The Fight, the carbon transportation network would cross five states, and has galvanized rural opposition against it. Last November, I predicted the Summit pipeline would have an easier time under Trump because of his circle’s support for oil and gas, as well as the placement of former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as interior secretary, as Burgum was a major Summit supporter.
Admittedly, this prediction has turned out to be incorrect – but it had nothing to do with Trump. Instead, Summit is now stalled because grassroots opposition to the pipeline quickly mobilized to pressure regulators in states the pipeline is proposed to traverse. They’re aiming to deny the company permits and lobbying state legislatures to pass bills banning the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. One of those states is South Dakota, where the governor last month signed an eminent domain ban for CO2 pipelines. On Thursday, South Dakota regulators denied key permits for the pipeline for the third time in a row.
Another place where the Summit opposition is working furiously: Iowa, where opposition to the CO2 pipeline network is so intense that it became an issue in the 2020 presidential primary. Regulators in the state have been more willing to greenlight permits for the project, but grassroots activists have pressured many counties into some form of opposition.
The same counties with CO2 pipeline moratoria have enacted bans or land use restrictions on developing various forms of renewables, too. Like Kossuth County, which passed a resolution decrying the use of eminent domain to construct the Summit pipeline – and then three months later enacted a moratorium on utility-scale solar.
I asked Jessica Manzour, a conservation program associate with Sierra Club fighting the Summit pipeline, about this phenomenon earlier this week. She told me that some counties are opposing CO2 pipelines and then suddenly tacking on or pivoting to renewables next. In other cases, counties with a burgeoning opposition to renewables take up the pipeline cause, too. In either case, this general frustration with energy companies developing large plots of land is kicking up dust in places that previously may have had a much lower opposition risk.
“We painted a roadmap with this Summit fight,” said Jess Manzour, a campaigner with Sierra Club involved in organizing opposition to the pipeline at the grassroots level, who said zealous anti-renewables activists and officials are in some cases lumping these items together under a broad umbrella. ”I don’t know if it’s the people pushing for these ordinances, rather than people taking advantage of the situation.”