Volkswagen’s new flagship sedan, Arteon, offers hope that this specific vehicle will pass like other vw flagship sedans.
With this style that oozes sober elegance and German design functionality, Volkswagen makes some statements and big bets. First, sedans, even though Arteon is a hatchback, are still applicable in an American market that is increasingly abandoning this venerable form of vehicle. Second, Volkswagen can make an attractive client car for Americans, even if its DNA with the logo cooked in this country is the sportsmanship. And thirdly, that the classic concept of “halo” vehicle still applies, and can still add price to a logo, in a 2020 vehicle market that has a confusing mess, with sui generis disturbances driven through Covid-19 and an unprecedented one. renewed interest in all-electric vehicles.
“It’s a halo car, a volume car,” Reinhard Fischer, senior vice president of strategy at Volkswagen North America, recently told me about Arteon. “It’s a lovely car. For me, this shows what Volkswagen can do if we try to expand a superb fashion car that also brings a lot of generation and a laugh to drive in the market.”
Priced at $36,000 and up to $48,000 packaged, the Arteon Type Coupé is powered by a 268-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder engine, delivering 258 pound-feet of torque, combined with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Transmission. Front-wheel drive is popular, with optional all-wheel drive in higher versions. The VW 4Motion AWD is popular at the equipment level, but costs $1,800 more on lower version models.
But while Arteon would never beat an all-electric Tesla Model S in a sprint, its sleek design includes a very useful ode to the revolutionary Model S: a sedan. Arteon’s discreetly incorporated tailgate provides the car with some capacity and vehicle application area, while at the same time allowing the art of the car’s charming external design.
Inside, Arteon’s diversity of appliances includes heated front seats, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, an on-board Wi-Fi hotspot and features such as a massage driver’s seat and autonomous driving functions, adding caution when leaving lane and assisting to stay in the lane.
Still, Arteon has a little differentiation to do to enter the American market. First, Arteon will have to convince buyers that it is particularly another sedan of Volkswagen paints in the AMERICAN market, the Passat, which is manufactured in Tennessee. Several years ago, Volkswagen further adapted its nameplate to the tastes of Americans making it bigger and more like the sedans they used to see from American, Japanese and Korean manufacturers.
But VW has a prominent Passat Arteon in several vital ways, adding driving experience. Its four-cylinder engine is stronger than the Passat and Arteon offers drivers a button for smoother driving or sportier handling. There is also no $48,000 Passat, with all the amenities of the amazing versions of Arteon available.
The other differentiator that is vital for Arteon is to distinguish itself from some of Volkswagen’s past attempts to create a halo car for the US market, especially Phaeton. Designed in Germany for Volkswagen’s strategic wishes there, Phaeton is a $100,000 wonder that possibly would have belonged to a James Bond film, but not in an American market where consumers could not even design a VW that cost so much. He came and left, very quietly, about 15 years ago.
It is very likely that Arteon does not suffer a similar fate. VW’s ambitions for the car are modest, its value is not beyond paleness, and who knows how the U.S. auto market will stabilize once it leaves the pandemic? Classic, highly qualified and even exciting sedans with a back door, such as the Arteon, can be simply gilded.
I have extensive interests and delight as a journalist, covering the automotive sector, the customer goods industry, entrepreneurship and others, as well as
I have broad interests and delight as a journalist, covering the automotive sector, the customer’s goods industry, entrepreneurship and others, as well as politics, culture, media and religion. He used to exhibit the auto industry for the Wall Street Journal, which awarded me and some colleagues a Pulitzer Prize for our general motors protection. I have also covered cars for Edmunds.com, AutoTrader.com, Automotive News and Advertising Age. I am a principal contributor to Chief Executive Magazine, Brandchannel.com, Townhall Magazine, New Nutrition Business mag and Journal, among others. I hope that living near Flyover Country for the most part of my life will give me a well-founded perspective.