Facelifted Volkswagen Passat revealed

A plug-in hybrid powered GTE model offering up to 70km of electric-only range will be the headline act of the facelifted 2019 Volkswagen Passat when it goes on sale following the Geneva motor show in March.

While it has modest visual changes, Volkswagen has worked under the B8 Series II Passat’s panels to keep it at the top of Europe’s mid-sized sedan and wagon tree.

It scores a trick new electronic damper technology, particulate filters across the range of both petrol and diesel engines, better driver assistance systems and a less intrusive version of the Touareg’s Innovision screen multi-media system.

The 2019 VW Passat will be launched in Europe simultaneously in sedan, wagon and higher-riding Passat Alltrack forms, the latter only available with a 200kW petrol or 140kW and 176kW diesel engines.

European Passats will arrive with four diesel powertrains and three petrol engines, dual-clutch and manual transmissions, front- and all-wheel drive and the flagship plug-in hybrid.

The latest Passat has been extensively reworked to give it 53km of pure EV range on the more realistic WLTP scale, or 70km under the optimistic old NEDC system.

That stretch from the old car’s 50km of NEDC EV running might turn a borderline-pointless piece of tax dodging/technical curio into a genuine commuting alternative for many people.

There’s a new battery-management system, too, that combines with the always-on connected status, which makes it easier to manage electric range on longer trips.

It combines a 110kW version of the Volkswagen Group’s 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine with an 85kW electric motor, delivering 160kW of total system power.

Other than that, Volkswagen is releasing neither torque figures nor acceleration claims for the GTE.

The lithium-ion battery pack that sits beneath the GTE’s rear seat has leapt 31 per cent from the outgoing car’s 9.9kWh of capacity to 13kWh.

Adding to its environmental credentials, the GTE always starts in its electric mode if there’s enough charge in the battery.

It can be charged via its 3.6kW battery charger or, if you have about six hours and 15 minutes to spare, via a conventional power grid.

The charging time falls to four hours on the 3.6kW charger or a wallbox, and its charging can be configured on the car’s smartphone app (along with the interior temperature).

If you want to be environmentally horrid and care not a jot for fuel economy, it can also be charged via the 1.4-litre petrol engine, which people will surely only do if they’re caught short for EV power coming into a pure EV area.

It uses just one transmission – the six-speed dual-clutch unit developed inside the Group for electrified work.

Its modes change from the default electric mode to sports driving via the GTE mode (where both motors work at their maximum) and a hybrid mode that thinks for itself about switching between motors.

The three European (at least) petrol motors begin with the highest-tech motor at the bottom of the capacity scale, with the 1.5-litre, four-cylinder TSI turbo engine delivering 110kW of power.

There are also 140kW and 200kW versions of the 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder unit.

All the turbo-diesel engines score both particulate filters and SCR catalytic converters.

There’s an 88kW 1.6-litre unit at the bottom of the range, then 110kW, 140kW and 176kW versions of the 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel.

Ride quality should be improved by electronically controlled dampers, whose three-tube damper units can stiffen and soften the ride purely by changing the amps it feeds to its valve.

It’s so precise that it can change the amperage every millisecond and besides the usual array of driving modes, ranging from 0.3 to 1.6A.

Volkswagen has also given drivers a slider that can come up on the infotainment screen to take the softness below the old default setting and the sportiness above the previous maximum.

In other technical talk, it’s taken a jump towards semi-autonomous driving by becoming the first Volkswagen to use a capacitive steering wheel, detecting each touch by the driver and delivering an interactive surface.

It has also pulled all of its driver assistance systems beneath the IQ.Drive umbrella, with the standout new feature being the addition of autonomous steering in situations where it has to use the autonomous emergency braking, allowing it to steer clear of trouble as well as stopping.

The 2019 Passat also steps up in using predictive active cruise control, hooking in data from the GPS and the sat-nav so the car always knows how fast it can and should go.

It also adopts the option of the Matrix LED, which debuted on the Touareg, with 44 LEDs, while the lighting suite is backed up with a slider on the screen for 30 ambient lighting colours in the cabin.

There’s another leap forward with a digital key, which now opens the entire car and the engine, not just the luggage area.