Q&A: Will the Touareg TDI Clean Diesel Come with a V8 Option?
This question came from a fan on the Volkswagen Facebook page. We asked Touareg product specialist John Ryan for the answer on whether the luxe SUV will get a boost of horsepower.
Reader question: Will the Touareg TDI come with a V8 option?
Answer: While it would be great to have the Touareg V8 TDI Clean Diesel as part of our U.S. lineup (what’s not to love about 590 lb-ft of torque?), early on we decided our U.S. flagship Touareg model should be the remarkable Touareg Hybrid. When you pair a 333-horsepower supercharged V6 petrol engine with a 47-hp electric motor, you not only get terrific performance—think 0 to 60 mph in 5.9 seconds—you also get excellent 24-mpg highway fuel economy[1] and incredible refinement.
Plus, when we crunched the numbers for the V8 TDI, we found the real demand for diesel power here in the U.S. was with the Touareg V6 TDI Clean Diesel. With an impressive 406 lb-ft of torque and new eight-speed automatic, it makes a terrific towing vehicle.[2] Yet it will still average a remarkable 28 miles to the gallon on the highway, which means more than 700 miles between fill-ups.[3]
Although the Touareg V8 TDI is offered in Europe, it is a pretty expensive package. In Germany, it starts at around 70,000 euros, or more than $96,000. We looked at the potential demand and found that it just wasn’t great enough to justify the considerable investment of bringing it in.
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—John Ryan, product specialist for SUVs, Volkswagen Product Marketing
