That seems logical to me, but then it does cost £8000 more, and both Tiguans will just get stuck in the same rush-hour queues anyway. There’s also, unusually and commendably, still a diesel offered in the Tiguan range – a 2.0-litre four – as well as two company car tax-friendly plug-in hybrids.
Like everyone else at Autocar, and indeed many customers, I was, shall we say, not a fan of the new dashboard interface that the Volkswagen Group began introducing with the electric ID 3 in 2019.
Both the Mk8 Golf and its Seat Leon sibling drove me mad at their 2020 launches with seriously glitchy software, a dearth of buttons and touch-sensitive ‘sliders’ for controlling the internal temperature.
Thankfully, although that basic design persists in the Tiguan, I’ve so far not had any trouble with the ones and zeroes, and the sliders are at least backlit at night. There are proper buttons on the steering wheel too, rather than those infuriating kind-of-buttons in the ID 3 and Golf – a relief for anyone who ever wants to skip a song.
As standard, the Tiguan’s touchscreen measures 12.9in across, but here it has been expanded to a full 15.0in by the £1130 Infotainment Pack Plus – which also includes a head-up display to supplement the usual 10.3in digital instrumentation display.
My preference would be a small, dial-controlled screen, but if you’re going to make me lean forward and tap, then the bigger the better, really.
So, are all those Tiguan buyers really unthinkingly following a set coded pattern, or am I just af icted with a bad case of cynicism and main character syndrome? A journey of discovery, whether self- or otherwise, starts here.
Update 2
Why has Volkswagen integrated ChatGPT into its latest cars, I wonder aloud? “Volkswagen may have integrated ChatGPT into its cars to enhance in-car virtual assistant capabilities, improve user experience and offer advanced AI-driven features for communication and assistance.”
There we have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Very meta. But even the horse itself isn’t entirely sure why, it would seem, and as so often is the case when artificial intelligence is concerned, the explanation is mostly jargon.
