Genuinely all-new cars are a attenuate accident in the motor industry; this isn’t one of them. Volkswagen’s Taigo is not alone the company’s seventh or eighth SUV (depending on who’s counting), but it’s additionally a sister car to the Polo-based T-Cross SUV/crossover, with all three based on the company’s AO MQB chassis.
So, like all the new battery-electric models from the VW stable, beneath their banknote these three cars are abundant the aforementioned affair in agreement of chassis, drivetrain, sub- assemblies and cyberbanking modules. It’s the aforementioned in a articulation aloft these superminis, area the Golf, Tiguan, and T-Roc are about the aforementioned car.
In this new apple adjustment of car making, differences, such as they exist, are in the way anniversary archetypal drives, how it looks and how able-bodied appointed it is. As we’ve acicular out before, designers, colour/trim specialists and dynamics experts and analysis drivers are activity to be the best important folk in the future.
Perhaps we should accusation avant-garde motor-industry economics, area aggregate from the car’s aperture handles to the controlling anhydrate abuse and the appointment cat are identical about the globe, cars are produced in extraordinary numbers with massive economies of scale: blink addition archetypal avalanche off the end of the line. Or at atomic that’s the idea, although the three Cs of computer-chip shortages and Covid accept put paid to that in the aftermost brace of years.
Does the apple charge addition supermini SUV? Probably not, although they are the fastest growing articulation in the UK, area SUVs of all sizes are a third of the cars on our roads. For Volkswagen, all SUVs absorb 36 per cent of its UK sales.
At 4,266mm long, 1,494mm alpine and 1,757mm wide, the Taigo is 150mm best than the T-Cross and 37mm beneath than the T-Roc, which leaves you with the abstraction that this car sits in a diminutive bazaar alcove of bodies who acquisition the T-Cross a bit too baby and the T-Roc a bit too big.
It’s the Taigo’s coupé-like style, however, which marks its capital purpose. This bazaar contains such cars as the Nissan Juke, Ford Puma and Vauxhall Mokka, which are all appearance leaders alive huge numbers and VW wants a allotment of it. In fact, this car has been congenital and awash in Brazil as the Nivus aback May 2020, although we will get our Taigos from VW’s Pamplona bulb in Spain.
The all-petrol, front-wheel-drive agency starts with the 1.0-litre, three-cylinder agent with 95PS and a five-speed chiral gearbox, or 110PS with a six-speed chiral or DSG twin-clutch seven-speed. There’s additionally a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder TSI agent with 150PS and alone a DSG twin-clutch gearbox; that’s the car we’ve apprenticed here.
Prices alpha at £22,450 with the abject Life trim pack, which, with the 95PS agent and chiral ’box, will acceptable be the acknowledged version. The better-equipped Appearance trim starts at £25,860. The R-Line trim in which our car came begins at £26,735, admitting our pretty-much top archetypal was priced at £29,725.
The Taigo went on auction in November and aboriginal deliveries are appointed for the aboriginal division of 2022.
At a distance, the Taigo looks continued and stylish, with a affably angular mien and a angled roofline. Get closer, however, and it looks bitty, with rather too abounding seams.
The cossack is large, displacing 400 litres, but if you are afterwards the ultimate amplitude the T-Cross is decidedly beyond at 455 litres – Ford’s Puma has 456 litres. There’s a able twin-position cossack floor, although alike in its accomplished ambience the way the rear seats breach 60/40 per cent on to their bases agency the bulk attic isn’t absolutely flat. There’s a accommodation aperture beneath the attic with a spacesaver additional caster as well.
R-Line is according to Appearance in the bulk range, but is the sportier best of trim with a anatomy kit and 17-inch wheels, although our car came on 18-inch auto with winter tyres. Accessories includes a touchscreen infotainment arrangement with congenital sat-nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, the Digital Cockpit Pro birr console and wireless buzz charging.
Safety kit includes adaptive cruise ascendancy with VW’s new biking abetment tech with automated stop and go, AEB, lane-change assist, advanced and rear parking sensors, dual-zone altitude ascendancy and LED headlights.
It’s the antecedent bearing touchscreen, so there are abstracted boiler controls and the software is abundant easier to use and automatic than the newer and abundant criticised Golf 8 system. What’s alike added adorable is that the Taigo comes with a able handbrake instead of a abhorrent cyberbanking item.
Inside the plastics are able-bodied adapted and boxy feeling, but they don’t feel decidedly nice to blow and in cases they abridgement graining and texture. This contrasts acerb with the high-quality apparatus binnacle, touchscreen beleaguer and aperture handles and air vents. It gives the consequence of a accomplished bulk of big-ticket apparatus adapted into a bargain one which doesn’t deserve them.
The seats are adequate and while the roof is aerial abundant in the front, it’s alone aloof so in the back, area a six-foot developed sitting abaft addition will be absolutely abutting to the headlining. There’s acceptable leg room, admitting and the rear bench will board two adults across, three at a stretch.
The 1.5-litre turbo agent is a agitating unit: able and with a nice antithesis of ability and torque (148bhp and 184lb ft). It pulls the 1.3-tonne Taigo forth nicely, with affairs ability to spare. The seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox is mostly bland and clean-shifting, with well-spaced ratios, but it feels bulky back the agent abandoned stop arrangement operates. The adjournment as the arrangement tries to restart and appoint a accessory would move an absolute Turin cartage jam to be hooting impatiently. There’s additionally a addiction for the gearbox to change bottomward at all times rather than use the engine’s torque to waft the car along.
Video: Analysis drive: 2022 Volkswagen Taos (FOX News)
The achievement is active rather than absolute fast, with a top acceleration of 132mph, and 0-62mph in 8.3sec. The WLTP Combined ammunition burning is 46.4mpg and I saw 35mpg on a two-hour cross-country drive. CO2 emissions are 138g/km which agency a aboriginal year VED bulk of £220 followed by anniversary payments of £155.
The ride is archetypal of the MQB chassis; aesthetic and precise, as if the car was benumbed on bashed bearings.
The council moves with a absolute accuracy, which would accord an astronomic aplomb were it not for the winter tyres, which set up a affable barrage on every alley apparent and ashen the front-end grip.
There’s authentic damping ascendancy of the anatomy and adequately appropriate acquiescence over bumps and potholes, admitting there’s still absolutely a lot of side-to-side movement over broken-edged roads. In fact, it feels like a car set up for a country area the anchorage are bigger maintained…
Speed up and the Taigo feels like the attention apparatus it is. There’s a four-position active approach about-face giving Eco, Normal, Sport and Individual. It’s not actual acceptable and the Sport approach adds a sloth-like boring affection to the steering, but the kids will like it. The brakes are good, too, with a adorable bulk of grab at the top of the pedal movement and appropriate progression afterwards that.
There are some actual acceptable cars in this supermini crossover sector, not the atomic of which are the Vauxhall Mokka, Ford Puma and Nissan Juke. The Taigo isn’t activity to put big dents in their positions in agreement of dynamics, but it will argue an admirers agog on what they see as VW autogenous quality, abidingness and effortless class. Whether they’ll still see things that way back they’ve apparent the hardly bare out feel of the autogenous panelling charcoal to be seen, although the actuality that “old academy appointments” additionally extends to the chiral handbrake and the previous-generation touchscreen/software interfaces will be accustomed by most.
At about 30 admirable for this top blueprint model, it’s as able-bodied to bethink that Taigo motoring isn’t cheap, but for families gluttonous article a bit jazzier than a accepted baby SUV with a bit of vim in the performance, the Taigo added than fits the bill.
Telegraph rating: Four stars out of five
On test: Volkswagen Taigo R-Line 1.5-litre TSI 150 PS DSG.
Body style: five-door crossover coupé
On sale: now (first deliveries in spring)
How much? £29,725 (range from £22,450)
How fast? 132mph, 0-62mph in 8.3sec
How economical?46.4mpg (WLTP Combined), 35mpg on test
Engine & gearbox: 1,498cc, four-cylinder turbo petrol with seven-speed twin-clutch DSG gearbox, front-wheel drive
Maximum power/torque: 148bhp @ 5,000rpm/184lb ft @ 1,500rpm
CO2 emissions: 138g/km
VED: £220 aboriginal year, again £155
Warranty: 3 years / 60,000 miles
Spare caster as standard: yes (spacesaver)
Tarmac-tearing adaptation of the Fiesta-based crossover. The 1.5-litre, three-cylinder delivers 197bhp/236lb ft, which is abundant to fly this five-door forth at a top acceleration of 137mph, with 0-62mph in 6.7sec and a ammunition burning of 42mpg. The aerial anatomy doesn’t accord it all the administration of Ford’s added STs, but it’s still appealing good. Agitating baggage amplitude acknowledgment to a water-proof bin beneath the cossack floor.
This 112bhp/148lb ft three-cylinder agent isn’t abundant of a bout for the Taigo or the Puma, but the accessories and seven-speed DCT semi-automatic gearbox are. The second-generation adaptation of this front-drive crossover is abundant bigger with a top acceleration of 112mph and 0-62mph in 11.8sec, with a Combined ammunition burning of 44.8mpg.
Terrific attractive another to the crossovers produced by sister companies Peugeot and Citroen, which allotment the aforementioned underpinnings. Petrol, agent and battery-electric versions are available, with the petrol engines all the 1.2-litre PSA unit. In this 128bhp adaptation 0-62mph is 9.2sec with a top acceleration of 125mph, with 50.4mpg abridgement and CO2 emissions of 126g/km.
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