A Tale of Two Volkswagens

If you need any proof that the United States can never become a country like the nations of Europe, by all means consider the cultural, not political, differences between them.  Don't bother with the differences between private health insurance and single-payer health insurance.  Instead, consider football versus soccer.  Sugary cereal versus muesli.  Clown-suit fashion versus stylish leisurewear.  Blockbuster movies versus cerebral dramatic films. 

The Volkswagen ID.3 versus the Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport.   

The Volkswagen ID.3 electric hatchback, which commenced production earlier this week in Zwickau, Germany, is designed to become for electric vehicles what the Beetle was to cars powered by aircooled internal-combustion engines and what the Golf and Rabbit have been to cars powered by watercooled internal-combustion engines.  It is meant to define and set the standard for motoring going into the 2020s and beyond.  Power from its battery is rated at 150 kilowatts producing 200 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque, on par with similarly sized gasoline-powered cars.  The transmission is a single-speed gearbox, and ranges are expected to be anywhere from 205 to 340 miles. This looks to be the world car that the Beetle and the Golf have been.

Except, of course, we Americans won't get it.

Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh nixed the prospect of the ID.3 being sold in the United States, saying that there was no way for Volkswagen of America to make a decent profit from it.  Keogh says he thinks he made the right call; alas, this may be true.  Americans don't like to bother with smallness and efficiency when it comes to gas-powered compacts, so an electric compact priced at the equivalent of $33,000 is hardly going to get American car-buyers excited except us Europhile weirdos.  What's really galling is how the Germans see the ID.3 as a source of national pride and forward thinking - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was even on hand to witness the first ID.3s roll out of the Zwickau plant - while we wouldn't see such a similar American car as that.  If Ford or Fiat Chrysler ever comes up with a competitor for the Chevrolet Bolt, don't expect Donald Trump to be on hand for its debut.  (The Bolt debuted a month before Trump was elected President.)

Ironically, Trump would have felt right at home at the debut of a very different Volkswagen model that debuted at the firm's American factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee - the Atlas Cross Sport.

The Atlas Cross Sport is a smaller version of the standard Atlas sport utility vehicle, and it offers seating for five instead of seven.  Fuel economy with the two-liter turbo four is a respectable 22 miles per gallon (mpg) rating in combined city/highway driving. Don't let all of that fool you, though; the Atlas, whether in standard or Cross Sport form, is still a big, bulky SUV with a high-riding chassis, and its optional 3.6-liter VR6, which is likely to be a popular choice, delivers 19 mpg in combined city/highway driving. Despite the German brand name, this Volkswagen is very American - made, as Volkswagen of America and Keogh himself claim, by and for Americans.  Not for this American.  And, as I noted before, not for any American VW die-hard who prefers drivers' cars over monster wagons.  To me, the Atlas, whether in standard or Cross Sport form, feels and looks like an Explorer.  If you want an Explorer, you should go to Ford.

To be fair, Keogh is pushing electric vehicles as much as his boss in Germany, Volkswagen AG chairman Herbert Diess, is, as I've noted before; other electric vehicles are coming for America.  Also, Europeans are buying more SUVs, notably the Volkswagen Tiguan but also other VW models like the T-Roc and the T-Cross.  But the electric Volkswagen coming to our shores, the ID.4., is yet another bulky, cumbersome crossover with an awkward design that emphasizes size over agility, while the T-Roc and the T-Cross are SUVs that are smaller and, by sport-utility standards, more sensible - maybe too small and sensible for Americans.  The smaller SUVs Volkswagen has promised for this market look to be not so small and not so sensible.  

So, while Europeans look to a more practical motoring future, Americans seem to think the days of big, muscular, imposing highway cruisers - designed to carry bodies that are big, and, well, one out of three ain't bad - will go on forever.  (Size does matter!)  No progressive legislation proposed by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is going to change such a pathetic cultural attitude as our atrocious taste in cars.  And Volkswagen seems to be resigned to that.

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You will notice that I haven't said anything specific about the upcoming Mark 8 Golf in this post.  I will bring it up on occasion in this space going forward, but for the bulk of my comments about the car and my ongoing efforts to get VW to send the base version of the car here, go to my new blog, "Bring The Base Mark 8 Golf To America!", where I'm drumming up support for the car to be added to VW's U.S. lineup.