Diesel likely to continue dominating VW Touareg sales over hybrid

We had the opportunity to chat about the new Touareg with Volkswagen of America communications director Steve Keyes at the New York Auto Show this week. The all-new and much lighter second-generation Touareg debuted last month in Geneva with VW's first production hybrid drivetrain. Shortly after the Touareg debuted, we learned that the price in Germany would be some €23,000 more than the 3.0-liter V6 TDI model. Clearly that doesn't bode well for sales of the hybrid.

According to Keyes, the Touareg U.S. price won't be announced until closer to the on-sale date here this fall. He did acknowledge that the price premium would not be nearly as large as it is in Europe. This makes sense, since that kind of pricing would clearly be commercial suicide (our description, not Keyes). Since the Touareg TDI V6 went on sale last year, it has captured an increasingly large share of the sales for VW's big SUV. Keyes tells us that the TDI currently accounts for about half of all Touareg sales and he expects that share to remain consistent when the new version arrives. As for the hybrid, Keyes expects it to capture about five percent of Touareg sales.

Live photos by Frank Filipponio / Copyright ©2010 Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: Volkswagen]