New Volkswagen Tiguan remains familiar – Looking ahead

Sales of the Tiguan have been declining in recent years, although the car itself cannot be blamed for that. Like almost all car brands, Volkswagen has seen its sales decline across the board due to the corona pandemic and the resulting chip shortage. The current Tiguan, which was presented in 2015 and received a facelift two years ago, has also faced more competition during its existence. In Europe, the Tiguan and Touareg were the only high-legged Volkswagens a few years ago, but now the T-Roc (on a Golf basis) and the Polo-related T-Cross and Taigo (elsewhere Nivus) have been added.

In addition, the rise of cars with an electric powertrain has undoubtedly taken a bite out of the Tiguan sales pie. Yet it is far from over and out for the Tiguan. In Europe alone, Volkswagen sold more than 48,000 copies in the first half of 2022, good for seventh place in its segment. Then we have not yet talked about the Tiguans that Volkswagen sells in the United States and China, among other places. With the introduction of its fully electric ID models, Volkswagen caused an internal revolution, but with the renewal of the Tiguan, the brand is working a lot more traditionally.

round plug

Given the speed with which Volkswagen is expanding the ID label, you might expect that the new Tiguan, which will hit the market around 2024, will also be purely electric, but that is not happening. After all, the ban on the sale of cars with combustion engines in the European Union will not come into effect until 2035, so Volkswagen still has some years to go before it has to put a final line on combustion engine models in our part of the world.
The Tiguan will not yet merge with an ID model, so there will be a new third generation Tiguan on a further developed version of the current MQB platform. Just with petrol and diesel engines. Of course, it does not stop at mild-hybrid TSIs and TDI diesel engines. After all, the current Tiguan is also available with a plug-in hybrid powertrain and Volkswagen would be wise to give the new model at least one plug version. Technical brother Golf is available as a 204 hp eHybrid and as a sportier eHybrid GTE with 245 hp of electrified petrol power. Volkswagen could also use this hardware in the Tiguan. Will there be another Tiguan R? That could very well be. Although an R version of the current Tiguan is not supplied in the Netherlands, elsewhere in the world there is indeed a 320 hp sporty top version of the SUV.

Volkswagen Tiguan (illustration: Larson)

lascivious

Volkswagen would show an unprecedented playful side if it gives the new Tiguan an appearance that violently breaks with what you are used to from the SUV. However, spy photos clearly indicate this isn’t going to happen, but that doesn’t mean Volkswagen is just tightening the Tiguan. In fact, the new third generation Tiguan is literally less tight. Slowly but surely, design influences from the ID family are seeping through to the rest of the Volkswagen range and that means: rounder shapes. We see more voluptuous lines on the flanks, a slightly sloping roofline and a rising shoulder line. Count on a workplace that matches the design and layout of the new Golf, complete with a more or less fused instrumentation and infotainment system. Anyone who likes the feedback that a physical button gives you will probably not be happy with the new Tiguan. Here too, the touch-sensitive buttons beat the traditional push buttons. Will there also be a Tiguan Allspace with seven seats? There is no concrete evidence for this yet, but it is certainly possible.

Tiguan in the Netherlands

Since the introduction of the first generation Tiguan in 2007, Volkswagen has sold more than 40,000 units over two generations. In 2019, the Tiguan had its absolute top year here. Then 5,871 Dutch people walked into the Volkswagen showroom to get a copy. In 2020 and 2021, however, the number of registrations fell to 3,194 and 2,337 copies respectively.