As the most expensive vehicle in Volkwagen's lineup, I had high hopes for the Touareg Hybrid. When it arrived, however, I initially felt a bit underwhelmed. The lines are clean as hell, and the rest of the exterior has a sharp, simple look to it, but I was expecting something that looked a little more … expensive.
I began wondering where, precisely, they put the $65,000 they were asking for this thing. That is, until I opened the door and climbed inside. Black leather everywhere, walnut detailing, chrome trim--it's plush in there. The leather-wrapped steering wheel was butter soft in my hands; I was caressing it like a pervert. It took all I had to not rub my face on it when I would stop at red lights.
The sound system delivers great highs and solid (if not 2Chainz-worthy) bass, and the touch screen--wow, that touch screen. Its matte black background with simple white writing looks like a CEO's business card. It says "you need to impress ME, not the other way around." The panoramic sun/moon roof combo lets in tons of natural light, and the one-button settings lets you open the sunroof with a twist of a dial instead of having to hold the button down. (It's a small detail, but an appreciated one.)
It's pretty swanky for whoever's riding with you, too: the back seat has plenty of legroom, and the seats are heated and recline, so your buddies won't be fighting for shotgun. Out back, there's 32 cubic feet of storage space, but if no one's hitting up the back seat, those suckers fold down for a grip of storage, 64 cubic feet to be precise. I tossed a bike in the back along with four 80-liter duffel bags with plenty of room to spare.
The 3-liter, supercharged V6 engine has a gobs of power--380 horses combined with its electric motor--and the Touareg's 8-speed transmission and solid platform (it uses the same one as the Porsche Cayenne) puts out a smooth ride. Eventually, that $65k price tag started to feel like a bargain. The driver's seat provides excellent all-around vision, and the seats felt great after consecutive hours of driving. The whole package slays the road--hills felt like ramps, and the Touareg Hybrid zipped through traffic much faster than a 5,000-pound SUV should.
This high-end Hybrid is great in the city--smooth ride, nearly silent cabin, plush interior--but its off-road performance really caught my attention. It felt wrong taking a $65k luxury-class SUV out for off-road shenanigans, but I did. I took the all-wheel-drive Touareg out on some of the more rugged fire roads that spiderweb through NorCal's Whiskeytown Recreational area. When engaged, the hill assist took all the technique out of crawling--I didn't have to brake at all on the downhills at all. You definitely feel the bumps, but I was really impressed with how much clearance the VDub had. I never bottomed out or scraped the bottom, even though I was hitting some good-sized ruts and rocks out there. And, just like on the road, hills were no issue at all.
In the end, the only thing that really bothered me about the car was the gas mileage. At 20/24 mpg, it's not hugely impressive. The hybrid merely seems to take the edge off the conventional V6, which produced 17/23 mpg's. The tradeoff comes with the power--it's all there, and it thoroughly bumps up the fun. But while the mileage doesn't do the "hybrid" label justice, but for the price, the Touareg Hybrid is as sensational a combination of luxury and balls as you'll find anywhere.
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