VW is pushing out its BlueMotion offerings with the announcement that the next Touareg will be offered with Volkaswagen’s first full production Hybrid when it launches next year. Also on offer will be a Passat BlueMotion, a Passat Blue TDi and a Passat TSi EcoFuel. I think we can guess which way VW are going with this!
The Touareg is the first VW group car to get a proper Hybrid, but it will soon find its way in to more cars, most notably the Porsche Panamera and the Porsche Cayenne, both of which we are promised Hybrids for.
VW Touareg BlueMotion Hybrid - Lower emissions, lower fuel consumption and more power. Lovely!
Good news for Porsche and VW is the reduction in emissions the Hybrid brings, which can only help bring down the group’s average Co2 – a big help with conformity on current regulations, and should help with CAFE fines for polluting manufacturers in the US.
The VW Touareg BlueMotion Hybrid is going to get the V6 3.0 litre supercharged engine straight out of the Audi S4, which by itself would be good news. But that gets hooked up to a 38KW electric motor, an eight-speed auto ‘box and a big bank of NMH batteries.
The big benefit of the supercharged engine and electric motor is that the Touareg will do the 0-60 in just 6.6 seconds, thanks to all the torque produced by the combination of the two motors. Not that that is really the point of an Eco car, but it’s a nice benefit. Put in to perspective, that’s quicker than a Porsche Cayenne S with the 4.8 V8.
The Co2 output drops to just 210g/km and fuel consumption improves by 25% to 31mpg. The addition of stop/start and brake regeneration, plus the ability to run just on the electric motor in town at speeds up to 30mph, could well see big SUVs back in favour.
Hopefully we will see the Panamera and the Cayenne get this set-up soon after the Touareg launches in 2010. More power and less cost. Sometimes I have to agree that this Eco stuff can make sense!
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