New Volkswagen flagship coming

Volkswagen plans to have 19 SUVs and another 40 passenger cars around the world with petrol, diesel and electric power by 2020, but there remains a glaring omission from the lineup.

The fact is, since the demise of the Phaeton, (made at its own, brand-new, multi-billion dollar, architectural triumph 'glass' factory in Dresden in the former East Germany), the Volkswagen brand has been an armada without a flagship.

Its mid-sized models have been split into conservative (Passat) and glamorous (Arteon), while its smaller Golf and Polo models are spawning crossovers from the same mechanical basics (T-Roc and T-Cross).

Yet the top step has remained curiously empty.

But Volkswagen will address that glaring void at the Geneva Motor Show in March when it teases a new five-metre-plus battery electric vehicle (BEV) flagship concept car.

While the Phaeton was seen as then-Chairman Dr Ferdinand Piech’s passion project - hence its W-12 engine, air suspension and virtual hand-assembly in the signature Dresden plant - despite critical acclaim, it struggled to sell a total of 84,000 cars in 14 years before being mercifully axed in 2016.

Now, Volkswagen has different plans for its new unnamed flagship. The BEV flagship will be the biggest Volkswagen to use the upcoming all-electric MEB architecture, with a predicted range between battery re-charges topping 600kms in real-world driving.

“We are going to have a show car in Geneva that shows a little bit the direction for this,” revealed Dr Frank Welsche, Volkswagen’s director of development.

“We did a map for every area you are describing (for a flagship): Touareg, Arteon and is there space for anything more?

“We definitely do not give up the area, and you could imagine an all-electric flagship. Better, we are going to have [one], we should discuss that in Geneva next year.”

Volkswagen engineered its seemingly-ubiquitous MQB architecture to sit beneath everything from the Polo to the Atlas SUV, and it has followed the same philosophy with the dedicated MEB electric-car architecture.

That platform will debut in a production car next year with the I.D. hatch, followed by the I.D. Buzz, the I.D. Crozz and then the flagship, which will use an I.D. prefix to denote Volkswagen’s electrified sub-brand.

Yet even Volkswagen’s flagship limousine can’t justify the cost of using the Volkswagen Group’s other premium electric-car architecture, Porsche’s J1 set-up.

“We are Volkswagen and we developed MEB and our customers have a certain amount of money to spend,” Dr Welsch insisted.

“Their solution is high performance, because that is Porsche. That is built so you can put a Porsche on it and this is not what we can afford, even for our flagship.

“But the MEB is quite flexible and you will be probably be surprised. It’s an improved body concept, we also did some customer clinics on that and it was quite successful, so we decided to go on this way, so let’s see in Geneva.”

Dr Welsch insisted Volkswagen had never deeply considered using the Chinese market’s plug-in hybrid Phideon as a global flagship, even though it’s a larger passenger car than either the Passat or the Arteon.

“We will not do the Phideon globally. We could do, but we will not because if you look for that segment, you don’t think that the Phideon fits well anywhere but China.

“People there expect a more classical style of car. Probably some people in Europe would say, OK, this is more classical and not in the best sense, because if you compare just from its styling to Arteon it is one step beyond in terms of design and expectation.

“Some people in Europe will say this (the Phideon) is an old car but it’s for a Chinese class that is buying such cars. They expect classical styling and so we made this new car all new but in Europe people will expect more and more innovative design.

“In Europe, what we think is progressive style will not work in China. This is kind of a premium class model and people stick with this form, but it can’t be a global car.”