Volkswagen Tera: mystery small SUV will use different name in SA

Volkswagen Tera: that’s the name of the firm’s upcoming mystery small SUV, as announced by its Brazilian division. But the SA-built version will use a different badge…

What will VW’s upcoming mystery small SUV be called? Well, the German firm’s Brazilian division has released a single image of the so-called A0 Entry SUV’s tailgate badge, revealing that it will be known as the “Volkswagen Tera” in that market.

However, Volkswagen Group Africa has confirmed to Cars.co.za that the “SA market will use a different name, which will be announced in due course”.

First glimpse of VW's small SUV — *VW released a teaser image in Brazil in September 2024.*

As a reminder, VW’s Brazilian arm – which is leading the design and development of this new model, and will also produce it at its Taubaté factory – dropped the first official teaser image in September 2024, ahead of a 2025 release in that market.

Thanks to a R4-billion investment, the small SUV will also be produced alongside the Polo hatch and Polo Vivo at the Kariega facility here in South Africa, though only from early 2027. What it will be called in our market, however, remains to be seen.

“There were long discussions to find the name for our new SUV and we arrived at an incredible result. Tera is a strong name that has the capacity to carry many stories. It will be a game-changer in the market and a new pop icon for Brazil,” said Ciro Possobom, CEO and President of Volkswagen Brazil, in translated press material.

Back in April 2024, Cars.co.za revealed that the Wolfsburg-based automaker had filed as many as 7 new trademark applications in South Africa, with each fresh badge starting with the letter “T” (falling neatly in line with VW’s current naming convention for its crossovers and SUVs – think T-Cross, Taigo, T-Roc, Tiguan and Touareg).

*Production of the new model at Kariega is due to start in early 2027.*

The very first badge on that list of 7 new nameplates? That’s right – “Tera”. Interestingly, we discovered that applications to protect all 7 nameplates were furthermore made in various other African markets, including Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya and Tunisia. VW Group Africa seemingly has plans to export the Kariega-built version to countries such as these.

Fascinatingly, we’ve since discovered that in September 2024, VW’s application to trademark the “Tera” moniker in South Africa was provisionally refused for being “open to objection” as “confusingly similar” to Nissan’s “Terra” badge (a ladder-frame SUV that was on sale in Mzansi for only a short period).

*The Kariega plant currently builds the Polo hatch (including GTI) and Polo Vivo.*

In October 2024, Martina Biene, Chairperson and Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Africa, told Cars.co.za that the local teaser campaign for the new “A0 Entry SUV” is scheduled to kick off in February 2025.

“We’re talking about a model coming in the beginning of 2027 to our market. We have started refurbishing [areas of] the plant and there will be a bigger [undertaking] in the plant in May 2025, when we put the robots into the body shop, which is a major operation,” Biene told us.

“But because it takes some time, we have not shown our small SUV car [yet], which is based on the Polo platform. We’ll show something at our Volkswagen Indaba 2025. Just to tease that [event] already: it’s on the 5th of February in Kariega, where we’ll show the first camouflaged model of what is coming, to keep you excited for the next 2 years.”