“I am not one thing,” it says. OK.
As part of its strategy to offer some 19 SUVs by 2020, German automaker Volkswagen has begun teasing its next addition to the high-riding lineup, the T-Cross. Sitting beneath the T-Roc in the range, the T-Cross will act was the new entry point into the SUV range, though judging by the specs that it’s reported to pack, ‘entry level’ won’t be the first thing that comes to mind.
Knowing that cars like the T-Cross and its rivals like the Nissan Juke and Renault Captur are favoured by young families, safety and driver-assistance tech are well catered for. Standard across the range are things like “Front Assist” (ambient traffic monitoring system) and “Lane Assist” (which is a lane-departure warning assistant, rather than a lane-keeping aid).
While Volkswagen hasn’t hidden the fact that its SUV push (and the current popularity of the bodystyle) will play no small roll in funding its efforts into electric mobility, sources that spoke to Autocar have said that the T-Cross is unlikely to receive an electrified powertrain, given its price-conscious appeal.
What’s more likely are an assortment of turbocharged petrol & diesel mills shared with the Volkswagen Polo, like turbocharged 3-cylinder and 4-cylinder mills. Manual and dual-clutch automatic transmissions are expected to feature, though VW’s 4Motion all-wheel drive system is unlikely to feature (a line in the press release reads “always front-driven,” which leaves little room for speculation).
While the T-Roc remains off the launch calendar here in Australia for the time being, the T-Cross has already been locked in for our market, as our earlier reports have confirmed. It’s worth keeping in mind that while VW does envision some 19 SUVs in their global portfolio, not all of them will be offered globally: Market-unique models will play a significant sales roll too, though all-in-all VW expects some 40% of global sales to come from high-riding family cars.
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