Mind you, I've crawled under VWs at MULTIPLE Detroit auto shows, not to check the underbody cladding, but rather to check the rear suspension.
(The media never noticed the US-spec Mk7 Golf TDI's twist beam until VW was putting out pricing and spec info in the past month or so. I saw it in Detroit in January, and saw why they did it, too (not cost reduction, but emissions system packaging).)
And, I'll note that Elio tweeted that image without context other than saying it was "perfectly normal" to do that.
And I was thinking it was maybe an Edison2 employee doing some... investigation...