The Volkswagen That Saved Porsche Is Being Killed Off

That's the global market, as it was discontinued stateside after the 2017 model year. The Touareg has been VW's most premium model for much of the last 25 years, and this change reflects that. As VW continues its move to be a lower-cost option and not the slightly premium offering it has been for much of its history, this vehicle no longer makes sense.

Touareg Will Be Replaced By The Smaller And Cheaper Tayron

The Volkswagen Tayron will be the quasi-replacement in the Volkswagen lineup, Autocar reports. The Tayron is the model sold in the US as the Tiguan, and is a relative of the Euro-market Tiguan. The Tayron is significantly smaller than the Touareg, notably nearly 10 inches shorter. However, the Tayron offers a third row of seats while the Touareg does not.

It's not just the Touareg that's going away. VW is also going to end the ID.5, the report says. The ID.5 was a crossover-coupe version of the ID.4 that was aimed at the Chinese market. It failed to find success there, and it was not popular in Europe. A smaller model that was described as a "mini Buzz" could also be dropped. A source told the site that the market wants crossovers, not MPVs, and the struggling VW brand needs to follow the market.

Volkswagen's original Touareg arrived at a very interesting time for the brand. Then-chair Ferdinand Piëch was trying to push the brand upward, while elevating the other Volkswagen Group premium brands as well. The Touareg was the brand's first SUV, but it was also designed to spawn Porsche's first SUV, the Cayenne.

Piëch's ambitions gave the Touareg some surprising features for the segment. An active air suspension and low range with locking differentials were among them. Later versions of the first-generation Touareg even offered VW's 6.0-liter W12 engine and the 5.0-liter V10-powered TDI model.

Touareg Helped Make Bentley, Lamborghini, And Porsche Successful

The first-generation Touareg was the basis for the Porsche Cayenne as well as the Audi Q7. In the vehicle's third generation, that family grew to include the Audi Q8 as well as Bentley's first SUV, the Bentayga, and Lamborghini's Urus. All have been massive profit centers for their respective brands, and likely would not have existed without the Touareg.

In the US, the Touareg disappeared in 2018. It was replaced by the Atlas, which was a much larger but decontented SUV that was more in tune with US buyers and what US buyers expected from Volkswagen. When it left the US, the Touareg was moving fewer than 5,000 units per year. Audi was moving 30,000 Q7s and Porsche 16,000 Cayennes. The Atlas, meanwhile, sold 27,000 units in its first year and reached a high of 83,000.

Volkswagen is in the midst of significant turmoil. Its pivot to electric following Dieselgate hasn't met targets. Delays in production and software have contributed, and in the meantime, the EV market softened while more competition arrived. The automaker has said it plans to slash its domestic vehicle production nearly in half to try and improve its financial situation, moving production to lower-cost sites.