Volkswagen India is soon to launch the upcoming Volkswagen Passat 2011 in India with BLUEMOTION technology and DSG automatic transmission as well as the manual transmission option. In this post, I will throw some light on Bluemotion and will also talk about DSG technology from Volkswagen. The BlueMotion features include fuel efficient engine, Start-Stop technology brake energy recuperation, gear shift indicator, particulate filter and DSG dual clutch gear box. New Volkswagen Passat is expected to launch in March 2011.
Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion will have a CO2 emission of 128 g/km and Volkswagen’s claim of 4.9 litres of fuel per 100 km. Expect the Passat BlueMotion to come with super reduced rolling resistance tyres, extra lightweight wheels and low-friction drive shafts.
Indian variants of VW Passat 2011 will come with two engine options: the 1.8 TSI petrol engine and 2.0 TDI diesel engines. The 1.8 litre TSI petrol engine gives 157.8 BHP of max power and 250 Nm of torque. The 2.0 litre TDI diesel engine churns out 170 BHP power. Both the petrol and the Diesel version will be available in Manual as well as DSG Automatic Transmission option.
Volkswagen Group Sales India’s Director, Neeraj Garg, told reporters, “We will launch the all new edition of Passat in the Indian market by March 2011. It will be launched at the same time as the ‘Think Blue’ campaign is introduced in the country.”
The ‘Think Blue’ campaign will likely commence during the end of the first quarter of 2011. The Think Blue campaign is to show that environmental protection is the top priority for Volkswagen. All the measures taken in this campaign will focus on potential savings, environmental awareness and sustainability.
Talking about the future plans, Garg said that India is the fastest-growing market in the luxury car segment and Volkswagen will continue to grow here. He added that by 2018, Volkswagen group will try to capture 20% of the passenger car market in the country. Currently, Volkswagen has 70 dealerships across 50 cities.
Currently Volkswagen Polo and Volkswagen Vento have been received well and with the Passat BlueMotion, the company is plotting to repeat the success in the luxury segment as well. The new Passat, if priced competitively, would pose a stiff challenge to the likes of Honda Accord V6, Nissan Teana, Skoda Superb and Toyota Camry.
What is Volkswagen Bluemotion?
- Bluemotion is not one technology, but it’s a terminology for a series of cars which use highly efficient technologies which make these cars eco-friendly without compromising on the performance. The technologies used in Bluemotion series of cars include:
- Aerodynamic design for less air resistance
- Automatic Start/Stop or Micro-Hybrid System
- Recuperation technology or regenerative braking
- Low rolling resistance tyres for improved fuel efficiency
- High fuel mileage with high efficiency modem engine with fine tuned MPFI and CRDI Systems
- Low emissions in exhaust
- Innovative DSG gearbox for reduced fuel consumption and better performance
And many such technologies which come together to make a really fuel efficient and low emissions car with good performance as well.
What is Volkswagen DSG Gearbox System?
- DSG or Dynamic Shift Gearbox by Volkswagen is a very innovative fusion of good attributes of Manual and automatic transmission technologies. Manual transmission is very efficient and results in very minimum losses and high performance, whereas conventional Automatic transmission with fluid based torque converter system are expansive and result in performance and energy loss to some extent over the manual gearboxes.
- DSG gearbox with dual clutch technology picks the best of the two systems and combines them into one system which uses two dry clutched and a mechatronics controller which changes gears automatically based on the calculations done by the electronic unit which monitors various sensors. So this unit as a whole, monitors the car’s speed accelerator position and automatically changes gears according to the needs of the driver. Since the gears are changed by an intelligent unit controlling the gear shift using mechanical controllers inside the system, there are very small energy losses unlike fluid based torque converters. This results in better performance, better acceleration and better fuel mileage. In layman’s terms, its like computer changing gears on a manual transmission like mechanism.
- I can’t go further detailing it and making it sound boring for you, its better you watch a video which explain it far better than the text in just 6 minutes:
- Volkswagen DGS Gearbox
- I hope such technologies are used more often and get more affordable so that they can be used by common people in India. Especially in urban traffic, an automatic transmission makes a lot of sense, and one with DSG makes even better sense with the fuel efficiency and performance.
Also see – Spied – VW New Passat
More pictures of 2011 Volkswagen Passat –
