VW Touareg Hybrid Costs $27,000 More Than Base Model. Are You Privileged Enough?

Even though its official launch is next week at the Geneva Auto Show, VW has just announced that their brand new Touareg hybrid SUV is available for German customers to order right now… for the paltry sum of 73,500 Euros (roughly $100,000). Holy hell. That’s just about $27,000 more than the lowest base price of a non-hybrid version of the Touareg in Germany.

I don’t know, would you rather own a Tesla Roadster or a VW Touareg hybrid? Craziness.

VW says the Touareg Hybrid has a 3.3 liter V6 mated to an electric motor that is integrated into the front of the transmission housing (can you imagine the repair costs if something goes wrong with the motor or the transmission?). The SUV reportedly gets almost 30 mpg on the European cycle (probably more like 25 mpg by U.S. standards), and can drive at speeds below 30 mph for short distances on battery power alone.

The big question is, how high will the Touareg hybrid be priced when it reaches U.S. shores later this year? Certainly VW can’t expect to sell many of them in the U.S. at that price and likely it will be lower—namely because we have far lower taxes on vehicle sales.

But even at $70,000, would you buy this thing? Would even rich people buy it? Somehow I don’t think so. If you have that much money to throw at cars, are you likely to care about how much fuel you’re using? Sad, but true.

Check out my recent post that highlights the problem of selling upscale hybrids and bundling them with forced features to make them more profitable. It certainly seems that VW has gone that route.

So, are you privileged enough to pay the “Hybrid Premium” that VW seems to think the Touareg hybrid is worth?

Source: Automotive News (subs. req’d)

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