China debut for VW’s flagship SUV
The thirdgeneration Touareg goes super-hi-tech.
Volkswagen says it is ‘‘making a statement’’ by choosing China as the venue for the world premiere of its new flagship SUV, the Touareg.
The largest markets for the new third-generation Touareg are China, Europe and Russia.
Worldwide sales of the previous two generations amount to nearly one million units.
The new model will be launched in New Zealand later this year.
The company says Touareg is now the most technically advanced VW available.
The company’s fully digitalised Innovision Cockpit appears for the first time in the Touareg.
The Digital Cockpit (12-inch display) and Discover Premium infotainment system (15-inch display) merge to form a digital operating, information, communication and entertainment unit that requires very few conventional buttons or switches.
Drivers use the Innovision Cockpit to adapt the assistance, handling and comfort systems to their personal tastes.
VW says the system is intended to be like a new smartphone: set up and tuned for the user straight away.
The Touareg has the largest range of assistance, handling and comfort systems ever integrated into a VW.
They include technologies such as the Night Vision assistance system (detects people and animals in darkness via a thermal imaging camera), Roadwork Lane Assist (semi-automated steering and lane keeping, accelerating and braking up to 60kmh), Front Cross Traffic Assist (reacts to cross traffic in front of the vehicle), active allwheel steering, new roll stabilisation with electromechanically controlled anti-roll bars, ‘‘IQ.Light – LED matrix headlights’’ (interactive, camera-based dipped and main beam headlight control) and a head-up display projected directly onto the windscreen.
Compared with its predecessor, the third-generation Touareg is slightly wider and longer.
Added exterior length has brought a significant increase in luggage capacity, from 697 to 810 litres.
An electrically extending and retracting luggage compartment cover is an option.
Despite increased length and width, the car body is 106kg lighter because of its mixed material construction of aluminium (48 per cent) and steel (52 per cent).
In Europe, Volkswagen will initially offer two V6 diesel engines with 170kW and 210 kW.
This will also be followed by a V6 petrol engine (250kW) and a V8 turbo diesel (310kW).
A new plug-in hybrid drive (270kW) is being prepared for China; its launch date in other markets has not been confirmed.
Long-distance driving specialist Rainer Zietlow drove a new Touareg from VW’s plant in Bratislava to the global reveal in China.
The route of the ‘‘Bratislava2Beijing’’ project took the Touareg through 11 countries: Slovakia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China.
The starting point was the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava, where the Touareg has been manufactured for 16 years.
Almost one million units have rolled off the production line since the start of series production in 2002.
Zietlow and his team drove the new Touareg through wintry Europe and deep-frozen parts of Asia.
Some daily stages were more than 1000 kilometres long, in temperature ranges of minus-23 to plus-21 degrees.
The Touareg itself has still fitted with camouflaged front and rear, prior to its world premiere.
The journey to the world premiere in Beijing took them along the snow-covered Urals, past frozen Lake Baikal through the expanses of Kazakhstan, the mountains and steppes of Mongolia and finally over Inner Mongolia to the Middle Kingdom. The total was 16,500km.
So far Rainer Zietlow has driven Touaregs along the ‘‘Panamericana’’ from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska in 11 days and 17 hours, from Melbourne to St Petersburg (‘‘Russtralia’’) in 17 days and 11 hours, from South Africa to Norway (‘‘Cape to Cape 2.0’’) in nine days and four hours, and from Magadan (Eastern Russia) to Lisbon in six days and nine hours.
VW’s global range of SUVs is also being expanded comprehensively.
It currently consists of the T-Roc, Tiguan (including Allspace), Atlas (US) and Teramont (China). The thirdgeneration Touareg is now its top SUV model.
Volkswagen will also be further extending the lower end of its SUV range with the compact T-Cross.
The first all-electric SUV from VW is also confirmed: the I.D. CROZZ. It will arrive on the market in 2020.
The Touareg has the largest range of assistance, handling and comfort systems ever integrated into a VW.