VW Confirms Arrival of Passat Station Wagon Successor for Next Year, with Sky-High Price

If you thought that Volkswagen would let the Passat, at least as a station wagon, live peacefully in its conceptually traditional form, you were wrong. Also in his case, an electric version of the ID will arrive, which was foreshadowed by the ID Space Vizzion concept back in 2019.

Station wagons have not exactly been the most popular cars among customers in recent years. At one time, they were particularly popular in Europe, but gradually SUVs took over most of their market share. Today, there are only a few manufacturers that offer cars on which you can slowly cram the entire contents of a block of flats over the rear axle. One of them is Volkswagen, where you can buy the Golf Variant, Passat Variant and Arteon Shooting Brake.

As such, the Passat will see a new generation that will be unveiled later this year. And it will even be available only as a station wagon. It will still be the same designed car, which has not lost its popularity so much, but the price can break its neck. The existing version is already available from 1,001,900 CZK, which is a crazy amount – it’s practically certain that you won’t get the new one for less than 1.1 million crowns. VW is largely pushing electromobility to the fore. However, since even larger sums are associated with it, it basically has no other option than to bring both types of drive closer by increasing the price of the combustion one.

We have frowned upon this strategy many times. People cannot afford to live indefinitely on debt like the state. They simply have to pay their debts or lose their property. Most of them not only can’t, but especially don’t want to go into debt for a brand new car. The means of transport are no longer associated with such social credit as they used to be. So if you buy a used car that is a few years old today, no one will look at you as a poor person.

This is exactly what manufacturers like VW are forcing most customers to do, but it will get even worse. The new Passat Variant will essentially just be an extension of the current model’s life, the ID.7 electric model, which was presented this week, can be considered the real successor. And as much as we expected it to be available only as a liftback, the reality will be different. The product manager of the Wolfsburg brand said that the Passat’s electric successor will also get a more practical variant. And the Germans want to reveal this next year.

When we realize that the default ID.7 will hardly start below 2 million crowns, then its more practical version, which will probably get the nickname Variant or Shooting Brake, will be even more expensive. It will thus aim at the clientele that cannot imagine themselves in a station wagon and nowadays see themselves more behind the wheel of an SUV. VW is thus again and again cramming money into a car whose prospects for success are very uncertain.

When we consider what a huge flop the ID.3 is and how much VW is starting to lose to the competition in China, then it is obvious that the Germans have not chosen a good direction. However, they can still turn things around. Unfortunately, we feel that the Wolfsburg management’s hit to the wall so far was not enough and an even bigger blow will be needed to wake up from their electric dream.

Already in 2019, the ID Space Vizzion concept was a harbinger of the upcoming more practical variant of the ID.7. At the same time, next year we should expect its serial version, but it can hardly look like a success given its price and usability. Photo: Volkswagen

Source: Car Week

Petr Prokopec

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