Volkswagen has made a statement by staging a world premiere of a new model for the first time in China – its largest market. The new Touareg marks a milestone in the brand’s largest model and technology campaign, and it shows what engineers and designers at Volkswagen can do. The new flagship takes a top position in the premium-class SUV segment with its expressive design, innovative operating, convenience and safety systems, as well as in the high quality of its materials and craftsmanship.
Equipped with the connectivity of a new era and a pioneering fusion of assistance, comfort, lighting and infotainment systems, the new VW Touareg points the way to the future. At the same time, the exclusive SUV charges up its market segment with pure dynamism.
The largest markets for what is now the third generation of the Touareg are China, Europe and Russia. Worldwide sales of the previous two generations amount to nearly one million units.
The Touareg, as comfortable as it is dynamic, has, as the most technically advanced VW of its era, the potential to enthuse technology- and design-savvy drivers of premium models of all sorts, reaching new target groups as well..
Volkswagen is presenting the fully digitalised Innovision Cockpit for the first time in the new Touareg. Here the digital instruments (Digital Cockpit with 12-inch display) and the top Discover Premium infotainment system (with 15-inch display) merge to form a digital operating, information, communication and entertainment unit that hardly needs any conventional buttons or switches. Always-on, offering intuitive control and maximum personalisation – with the Innovision Cockpit, the Touareg provides the blueprint for tomorrow’s digital interior today.
Drivers use the Innovision Cockpit to adapt the assistance, handling and comfort systems specifically to their personal tastes, so the car becomes “their” Touareg. This opens up a world in which the driver and onboard guests no longer have to adapt to the car; rather, the car adapts to them.
Like a new smartphone, the Volkswagen is set up and tuned to personal needs. This is made possible by a new high level of connected systems and programmes, controlled via digital interfaces and the multi-function steering wheel.
The new Touareg is launching with the largest range of assistance, handling and comfort systems ever to be integrated into a Volkswagen.
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 60km/h), Front Cross Traffic Assist (reacts to cross traffic in front of the Touareg), active all-wheel-steering (makes the Touareg handle like a compact car), 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 ‘Windshield Head-up Display’ projected directly onto the windscreen.
The driver experiences these systems as a single unit in the new Touareg. They are simply there, interconnected via a new central control unit and working imperceptibly in the background and making travel safer, more convenient and more intuitive than ever.
Compared to its predecessor, the third-generation Touareg is moderately wider and longer. The new dimensions have positive effects on both the vehicle’s proportions and its amount of interior space.
The added exterior length, for example, leads to a significant increase in luggage capacity, from 697 to 810 litres (with rear bench seat up). Cargo there is hidden from onlookers by an optional electrically extending and retracting luggage compartment cover. Despite its increased length and width, the car body is 106kg lighter because of its mixed material construction of aluminium (48 percent) and high-tech steels (52 percent).
In Europe, Volkswagen will initially offer two V6 diesel engines for the new 2018 Touareg with outputs of 231hp and 286hp. In a number of markets, this will also be followed by a V6 petrol engine with 340hp and a V8 turbo-diesel with 421hp. A new plug-in hybrid drive with 367hp of system power is being prepared for China. 
Read our 2011 comparison of Volkswagen Touareg, Mercedes-Benz ML350 and Lexus RX350.
